*v*y 


BR  325 

.S447  1917 

Seiss , 

Joseph  Augustus,  18; 

-1904. 

Luther 

and  the  reformation 

Luther  and  the  Reformation 


THE 


LIFE-SPRINGS 


OUR  LIBERTIES. 


JOSEPH  A.  SEISS,  D.D., 

Pastor  of  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Communion,  Philadelphia* 

author  of 

"A  Miracle  in  Stone,"  "Voices  from  Babylon,"  etc  etc 


PHILADELPHIA: 

General  Council  Publication  House. 

1917 


Copyright,  1883, 
BY   PORTER   A   COATES. 


PREFACE 


The  first  part  of  this  book  presents  the 
studies  of  the  Author  in  preparing  a  Me- 
morial Oration  delivered  in  the  city  of  New 
York,  November  10,  1883,  on  the  four  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  the  birth  of  Martin 
Luther.  The  second  part  presents  his  studies 
in  a  like  preparation  for  certain  Discourses 
delivered  in  the  city  of  Philadelj3hia  at  the 
Bi-Centennial  of  the  founding  of  the  Com- 
monwealth of  Pennsylvania.  There  was  no 
intention,  in  either  case,  to  make  a  book,  how- 
ever small  in  size.  But  the  utterances  given 
on  these  occasions  having  been  solicited  for 
publication  in  permanent  shape  for  common 
use,  and  the  two  parts  being  intimately  re- 
lated   in    the    exhibition   of    the    most   vital 


4  PREFACE. 

springs  of  our  religious  and  civil  freedom,  it 
has  been  concluded  to  print  these  studies  en- 
tire and  together  in  this  form,  in  hope  that 
the  same  may  satisfy  all  such  desires  and 
serve  to  promote  truth  and  righteousness. 

Throughout  the  wide  earth  there  has  been 
an  unexampled  stir  with  regard  to  the  life 
and  work  of  the  great  Reformer,  and  these 
'presentations  may  help  to  show  it  no  wild 
craze,  but  a  just  and  rational  recognition  of 
God's  wondrous  providence  in  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  modern  world. 

And  to  Him  who  was,  and  who  is,  and  who 
is  to  come,  the  God  of  all  history  and  grace, 
be  the  praise,  the  honor,  and  the  glory,  world 
without  end! 

Thanksgiving  Day,  1883. 


CONTENTS 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION   pp.  7-134. 

Human  Greatness,  9.— The  Papacy,  12— Effects  at  Reform,  14.— 
Time  of  the  Reformation,  17.— Frederick  the  Wise,  18.— 
Reuchlin,  19.— Erasmus,  21.— Ulric  von  Hiitten,  23.— Ulrieh 
Zwingli,  24.— Melanchthon,  24.— John  Calvin,  25.— Luther 
the  Chosen  Instrument,  27.— His  Origin,  ^8^-^Eariy  Training, 
2^.— Nature  of  the  Reformation,  32.— Luther's  Spiritual  Train- 
ing, 34.— Development  for  his  Work,  39.— Visit  to  Rome,  42. 
— Elected  Town-Preacher,  45.— Made  a  Doctor,  45.— His 
Various  Labors,  48.  -Collision  with  the  Hierarchy,  49.— The 
Indulgence-Traffic,  50.— Jgtzel'a  Performances,  54.— Luther  on 
Indulgences,  57.— Sermon  on  Indulgences,  59. — Appeal  to  the 
Bishops,  G2—The  Ninety-five  Theses,  63. -Effect  of  the  Theses, 
65— Tetzel's  End,  68.— Luther's  Growing  Influence,  68.— Ap- 
peal to  the  Pope,  69.— Citation  to  Rome,  70.— Appears  be- 
fore Cajetan,  71.— Cajetan's  Failure,  72.— Progress  of  Events, 
74.— The  Leipsie  Disputation,  75.— Results  of  the  Debate, 
76.— Luther's  Excommunication,  78.— Answer  to  the  Pope's 
Bull,  81.— The  Diet  of  Worms,  83.— Doings  of  the  Romanists, 
85.— Luther  Summoned  to  the  Diet,  87.— Luther  at  the  Diet, 
90-  Refuses  to  Retract,  92.— His  Condemnation,  95.— Carried 
to  the  Wartburg,  95.— Translation  of  the  Bible,  96— His  Con- 
servatism, 98.— Growth  of  the  Reformation,  100.—  Luther  s 
Co  echisms,  103.— Protestants   and  War,  103.—  The    Oonfemon 


CONTENTS. 

of  Augsburg,  1  05. —League  of  Bmalcald,  109. — Luther's  Latei 
Years,  111. — His  Personate,  114. — His  Great  Qualities,  119- 
His  Alleged  Coarseness,  123. — His  Marvelous  Achievements, 
126. — His  Impress  upon  the  World,  127. — His  Enemies  and 
Revilers,  131. 


THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA,  pp.  135-206. 

I.  The  History  and  the  Men. 

Beginning  of  Colonization  in  America,  137. — Movements  in  Swe- 
den, 138. — Swedish  Proposals,  143. — Was  Penn  Aware  of  these 
Plans?  145. — The  Swedes  in  Advance  of  Penn,  147. —  The 
Men  of  those  Times,  151. — Gustavus  Adolphus,  152. — Axel 
Oxenstiern,  155.— Peter  Minuit,  157. — William  Penn,  159. — 
Estimate  of  Penn,  161. — Penn  and  the  Indians,  162. — Penn's 
Work,  168.— The  Greatness  of  Faith,  169. 

II.  The  Principles  Enthroned. 

Man's  Religious  Nature,  173.—  Our  State  the  Product  of  Faith,  174. 
— Gustavus  and  the  Swedes,  176.— The  Feelings  of  William 
Penn,  178. — Recognition  of  the  Divine  Being,  ISO. — Enact- 
ments on  the  Subject,  183. — Importance  of  this  Principle, 
185. — Religious  Liberty,  187. — Persecution  for  Opinion's  Sake, 
189. — Spirit  of  the  Founders  of  Pennsylvania,  190. — Consti- 
tutional Provisions,  193. — Safeguards  to  True  Liberty,  194. — 
Laws  on  Religion  and  Morals,  197.— Forms  o(  Government, 
200.— A  Republican  State,  202.- -The  Last  Two  Hundred 
Years,  203. 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 


A  HARE  spectacle  lias  been  spreading  itself 
before  the  face  of  heaven  during  these 
last  months. 

Millions  of  people,  of  many  nations  and 
languages,  on  both  sides  of  the  ocean,  simul- 
taneously engaged  in  celebrating  the  birth  of 
a  mere  man,  four  hundred  years  after  he  was 
born,  is  an  unwonted  scene  in  our  world. 

Unprompted  by  any  voice  of  authority,  un- 
constrained by  any  command  of  power,  we  join 
in  the  wide-ranging  demonstration. 

In  the  happy  freedom  which  has  come  to  us 
among  the  fruits  of  that  man's  labors  we  bring 
our  humble  chaplet  to  grace  the  memory  of 
one  whose  worth  and  services  there  is  scarce 
capacity  to  tell. 

Human    Greatness. 
Some  men   are  colossal.      Their   characters 
are  so  massive,  and  their  position   in    history 


10  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

is  so  towering,  that  other  men  can  hardly  get 
high  enough  to  take  their  measure.  An  over- 
ruling Providence  so  endows  and  places  them 
that  they  affect  the  world,  turn  its  course  into 
new  channels,  impart  to  it  a  new  spirit,  and 
leave  their  impress  on  all  the  ages  after  them. 
Even  humble  individuals,  without  titles,  crowns, 
or  physical  armaments,  have  wrought  them- 
selves into  the  very  life  of  the  race  and  built 
their  memorials  in  the  characteristics  of  epochs. 
.  History  tells  of  a  certain  Saul  of  Tarsus,  a 
lone  and  friendless  man,  stripped  of  all  earthly 
possessions,  forced  into  battle  with  a  universe 
of  enthroned  superstition,  encompassed  by 
perils  which  threatened  every  hour  to  dissolve 
him,  who,  pressing  his  way  over  mountains  of 
difficulty  and  through  seas  of  suffering,  and 
dying  a  martyr  to  his  cause,  gave  to  Europe 
a  living  God  and  to  the  nations  another  and 
an  everlasting  King. 

We  likewise  read  of  a  certain  Christopher 
Columbus,  brooding  in  lowly  retirement  upon 
the  structure  of  the  physical  universe,  ridi- 
culed, frowned  on  by  the  learned,  repulsed  by 
court  after  court,  yet  launching  out  into  the 
unknown  sens  to  find  an  undiscovered  hemi- 
sphere, and  opening  the  way  for  persecuted 
Liberty  to  cradle  the  grand  empire  of  popular 


HUMAN  GREATNESS.  11 

rule  amid  the  golden  hills  of  a  new  and  in- 
dependent continent. 

And  in  this  category  stands  the  name  of 
Martin  Luther. 

He  was  a  poor,  plain  man,  only  a  doctor  of 
divinity,  without  place  except  as  a  teacher  in 
a  university,  without  power  or  authority  except 
in  the  convictions  and  qualities  of  his  own  soul, 
and  with  no  implements  save  his  Bible,  tongue, 
and  pen ;  but  with  him  the  ages  divided  and 
human  history  took  a  new  departure. 

Two  pre-eminent  revolutions  have  passed 
over  Europe  since  the  beginning  of  the  Chris- 
tian era.  The  one  struck  the  Rome  and  rule 
of  emperors ;  the  other  struck  the  Rome  and 
rule  of  popes.  The  one  brought  the  Dark 
Ages ;  the  other  ended  them.  The  one  over- 
whelmed the  dominion  of  the  Caesars ;  the  other 
humiliated  a  more  than  imperial  dominion 
reared  in  Caesar's  place.  Alaric,  Rhadagaisus, 
Genseric,  and  Attila  were  the  chief  instruments 
and  embodiment  of  the  first;  Martin  Luther 
was  the  chief  instrument  and  embodiment  of 
the  second.  The  one  wrought  bloody  desola- 
tion;  the  other  brought  blessed  renovation, 
under  which  humanity  has  bloomed  its  hap- 
piest and  its  best. 


12        luteer  and  the  reformation. 

The  Papacy. 

Since  Pliocas  decreed  the  bishop  of  Rome 
the  supreme  head  of  the  Church  on  earth 
there  had  grown  up  a  strange  power  which 
claimed  to  decide  beyond  appeal  respecting 
everybody  and  everything — from  affairs  of 
empire  to  the  burial  of  the  dead,  from  the 
thoughts  of  men  here  to  the  estate  of  their 
souls  hereafter — and  to  command  the  anathemas 
of  God  upon  any  who  dared  to  question  its  au- 
thority. It  held  itself  divinely  ordained  to 
give  crowns  and  to  take  them  away.  Kings 
and  potentates  were  its  vassals,  and  nations  had 
to  defer  to  it  and  serve  it,  on  pain  of  interdicts 
which  smote  whole  realms  with  gloom  and 
desolation,  prostrated  all  the  industries  of  life, 
locked  up  the  very  graveyards  against  decent 
sepulture,  and  consigned  peoples  and  genera- 
tions to  an  irresistible  damnation.  It  was 
omnipresent  and  omnipotent  in  civilized  Eu- 
rope. Its  clergy  and  orders  swarmed  in  every 
place,  all  sworn  to  guard  it  at  every  point  on 
peril  of  their  souls,  and  themselves  held  sacred 
in  person  and  retreat  from  all  reach  of  law  for 
any  crime  save  lack  of  fealty  to  the  great 
autocracy.*     The  money,  the  armies,  the  lands, 

*Manv  assumed  the  clerical  character  for  no  other  reason  than 


THE  PAPACY.  13 

the  legislatures,  the  judges,  the  executives,  the 
police,  the  schools,  with  the  whole  ecclesiastical 
administration,  reaching  even  to  the  most 
private  affairs  of  life,  were  under  its  control. 
And  at  its  centre  sat  its  absolute  dictator, 
unanswerable  and  supreme,  the  alleged  Vicar 
of  God  on  earth,  for  whom  to  err  was 
deemed  impossible. 

Think  of  a  power  which  could  force  King 
Henry  IV.,  the  heir  of  a  long  line  of  emperors, 
to  strip  himself  of  every  mark  of  his  station, 
put  on  the  linen  dress  of  a  penitent,  walk 
barefooted  through  the  winter's  snow  to  the 
pope's  castle  at  Canossa,  and  there  to  wait 
three  days  at  its  gates,  unbefriended,  unfed,  and 
half  perishing  with  cold  and  hunger,  till  all 
but  the  alleged  Vicar  of  Jesus  Christ  were 
moved  with  pity  for  his  miseries  as  he  stood 
imploring  the  tardy  clemency  of  Hildebrand, 
which  was  almost  as  humiliating  in  its  bestowal 
as  in  its  reservation. 

Think  of  a  power  which  could  force  the 
English  king,  Henry  II.,  to  walk  three  miles 
of  a  flinty  road,  with  bare  and  bleeding  feet,  to 
Canterbury,  to  be  Hogged  from  one  end  of  the 

that  it  might  screen  them  from  the  punishment  which  their  actions 
deserved,  and  the  monasteries  were  full  of  people  who  entered  them 
to  be  secure  against  the  consequences  of  their  crimes  and  atrocities. 
— Rymer's  Fcedera,  vol.  xiii.  p.  532. 


14  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

church  to  the  other  by  the  beastly  monks, 
and  then  forced  to  spend  the  whole  night  in 
supplications  to  the  spirit  of  an  obstinate, 
perjured,  and  defiant  archbishop,  whom  four 
of  his  over-zealous  knights,  without  his  orders, 
had  murdered,  and  whose  inner  garments,  when 
he  was  stripped  to  receive  his  shroud,  were 
found  alive  with  vermin ! 

Think  of  a  power  which,  in  defiance  of  the 
sealed  safe-conduct  of  the  empire,  could  seize 
John  Huss,  one  of  the  worthiest  and  most 
learned  men  of  his  time,  and  burn  him  alive 
in  the  presence  of  the  emperor ! 

Think  of  a  power  which,  by  a  single  edict, 
caused  the  deliberate  murder  of  more  than 
fifty  thousand  men  in  the  Netherlands  alone ! 

Efforts  at  Reform. 
To  restrain  and  humble  this  gigantic  power 
was  the  desideratum  of  ages.  For  two  hun- 
dred years  had  men  been  laboring  to  curb  and 
tame  it.  From  theologians  and  universities, 
from  kings  and  emperors,  from  provinces  and 
synods,  from  general  councils,  and  even  the 
College  of  Cardinals — in  every  name  of  right, 
virtue,  and  religion — appeal  after  appeal  and 
solemn  effort  after  effort  were  made  to  reform 
the  Roman  court  and  free  the  world  from  the 


EFFORTS  AT  REFORM.  15 

terrible  oppression.  Wars  on  wars  were  was:ed ; 
provinces  on  provinces  were  deluged  with  blood ; 
coalitions,  bound  by  sacred  oaths,  were  formed 
against  the  giant  tyranny.  And  yet  the  hier- 
archy managed  to  maintain  its  assumptions  and 
to  overwhelm  all  remedial  attempts.  Whether 
made  by  individuals  or  secular  powers,  by 
councils  or  governments,  the  result  was  the 
same.  The  Pontificate  still  triumphed,  with 
its  claims  unabridged,  its  dominion  unbroken, 
its  scandals  uncured. 

A  general  council  sat  at  Constance  to  reform 
the  clergy  in  head  and  members.  It  managed 
to  rid  itself  of  three  popes  between  whom 
Christendom  was  divided,  when  the  emperor 
moved  that  the  work  of  reform  proceed.  But 
the  cardinals  said,  How  can  the  Church  reform 
itself  without  a  head  ?  So  they  elected  a  pope 
who  was  to  lead  reform.  Yet  a  day  had  hard- 
ly passed  before  they  found  themselves  in  a 
traitor's  power,  who  reaffirmed  all  the  acts  of 
the  iniquitous  John  XXIII.,  who  had  just  been 
deposed  for  his  crimes,  and  presently  endowed 
him  with  a  cardinal's  hat ! 

When  this  pope,  Martin  V.,  died,  the  cardi- 
nals thought  to  remedy  their  previous  mistake. 
They  would  secure  their  reforms  before  elect- 
ing a  pope.     So  they  erected  themselves  into 


16  LUTHER  AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

a  standing  senate,  without  which  no  future 
vope  could  act.  And  they  each  took  solemn 
oath,  before  God  and  all  angels,  by  St.  Peter 
and  all  apostles,  by  the  holy  sacrament  of 
Christ's  body  and  blood,  and  by  all  the  powers 
that  be,  if  elected,  to  conform  to  these  arrange- 
ments and  to  use  all  the  rights  and  prerog- 
atives of  the  sublime  position  to  put  in  force 
the  reforms  conceded  to  be  necessary. 

But  what  are  oaths  and  fore-pledges  to  can- 
didates greedy  for  office?  The  tickets  which 
elected  the  new  pope  had  hardly  been  counted 
when  he  absolved  himself  from  all  previous 
obligations,  disowned  the  senate  of  cardinals 
he  had  helped  to  erect,  began  his  career  with 
violence  and  robbery,  plundered  the  cities  and 
states  of  Italy,  religiously  violated  all  compacts 
but  those  which  favored  his  absolute  suprem- 
acy, brought  to  none  effect  the  reform  Council 
of  Basle,  deceived  Germany  with  his  specious 
and  hollow  concessions,  averted  the  improve- 
ments he  had  sworn  to  make,  and  by  his  perfidy 

and  cunning  managed  to  retain  in   Subordina- 
cy o 

tion  to  the  old  regime  nearly  the  whole  of  that 
Christendom  which  he  had  outraged  ! 

In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  centuries,  this  super- 
imperial  power  held  by  the  throat  a  struggling 
world. 


TIME  OF  THE  REFORMATION.  17 

To  break  that  gnarled  and  bony  hand,  wliieh 
locked  up  everything  in  its  grasp ;  to  bring 
down  the  towering  altitude  of  that  olden 
tyranny,  whose  head  was  lifted  to  the  clouds ; 
to  strike  from  the  soul  its  clanking  chains  and 
set  the  suffering  nations  free ;  to  champion  the 
inborn  rights  of  afflicted  humanity,  and  con- 
quer the  ignorance  and  imposture  which  had 
governed  for  a  thousand  years, — constituted 
the  work  and  office  of  the  man  the  four  hun- 
dredth anniversary  of  whose  birth  half  the 
civilized  world  is  celebrating  to-day. 

Time  of  the  Reformation. 
It  has  been  said  that  when  this  tonsured 
Augustinian  came  upon  the  stage  almost  any 
brave  man  might  have  brought  about  the  im- 
pending changes.  The  Reformers  before  the 
Reformation,  though  vanquished,  had  indeed 
not  lived  in  vain.  The  European  peoj)les  were 
outgrowing  feudal  vassalage,  and  moving  to- 
ward nationalization  and  separation  between 
the  secular  and  ecclesiastical  powers.  Travel, 
exploration,  and  discovery  had  introduced  new 
subjects  of  human  interest  and  contemplation. 
Schools  of  law,  medicine,  and  liberal  education 
were  being  established  and  largely  attended. 
The  common  mind  was  losing  faith  in  the  pro- 
2 


18  LUTHER  AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

fessions  and  teachings  of  the  old  hierarchy, 
Free  inquiry  was  overturning  the  dominion 
of  authority  in  matters  of  thought  and 
opinion.  The  intellect  of  man  was  beginning 
to  recover  from  the  nightmare  of  centuries. 
A  mightier  power  than  the  sword  had  sprung 
up  in  the  art  of  printing.  In  a  word,  the 
world  wTas  gravid  wTith  a  new  era.  But  it  was 
not  so  clear  who  would  he  able  to  bring  it 
safely  to  the  birth. 

-  There  wTere  living  at  the  time  many  eminent 
men  who  might  be  thought  of  for  this  office 
had  it  not  been  assigned  to  Luther.  Reuchlin, 
Erasmus,  Hiitten,  Sickingen,  and  others  have 
been  named,  but  the  list  might  be  extended, 
and  yet  no  one  be  found  endowed  with  the 
qualities  to  accomplish  the  work  that  was 
needed  and  that  was  accomplished. 

Frederick  the  Wise. 
The  Saxon  Elector,  Frederick  the  Wise,  was 
the  worthiest,  most  popular,  and  most  influential 
ruler  then  in  Europe.  He  could  have  been 
emperor  in  place  of  Charles  V.  had  he  con- 
sented to  be.  The  history  of  the  world  since 
his  time  might  have  been  greatly  different  had 
he  yielded  to  the  general  desire.  His  princi- 
ples,   his    attainments,    his    wisdom,    and     his 


REUCHLIN.  19 

spirit  were  everything  to  commend  him.  He 
founded  the  University  of  Wittenberg  in  hope 
that  it  would  produce  preachers  who  would 
leave  off  the  cold  subtleties  of  Scholasticism 
and  the  uncertainties  of  tradition,  and  give  dis- 
courses that  would  possess  the  nerve  and  power 
of  the  Gospel  of  God.  He  sought  out  the  best 
and  most  pious  men  for  his  advisers.  He  was 
the  devoted  friend  of  learning,  truth,  and 
virtue.  By  his  prudence  and  foresight  in 
Church  and  State  he  helped  the  Reformation 
more  than  any  other  man  then  in  power.  Had 
it  not  been  for  him  perhaps  Luther  could  not 
have  succeeded.  But  it  was  not  in  the  nature 
of  things  for  the  noble  Elector  to  give  us  such 
a  Keformation  as  that  led  by  his  humble 
subject.  It  is  useless  to  speculate  as  to  what 
the  Reformation  might  have  become  in  his 
hands;  but  it  certainly  could  never  have  become 
what  we  rejoice  to  know  it  was,  while  the  prob- 
abilities are  that  we  would  now  be  fighting  the 
battles  which  Luther  fought  for  us  three  and  a 
half  centuries  ago. 

Reuciilin. 
Reuchlin  was  a  learned  and  able  man,  and 
deeply  conscious  of  the  need  of  reform.     AY  hen 
the  Greek  Argyrophylos  heard  him  read  and 


20  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

explain  Thucydides,  lie  exclaimed,  "  Greece 
has  retired  beyond  the  Alps."  He  was  the 
first  Hebrew  scholar  of  Germany,  and  served 
to  restore  the  Hebrew  Scriptures  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Church.  He  held  that  popes 
could  err  and  be  deceived.  He  had  no  faith 
in  human  abnegations  for  reconciliation  with 
God.  He  saw  no  need  for  hierarchical  media- 
tions, and  discredited  the  doctrine  of  Purgatory 
and  masses  for  the  dead.  He  bravely  defended 
the  cause  of  learning  against  the  ignorant 
monks,  whom  he  hated  and  held  up  to  merci- 
less ridicule.  He  was  a  brilliant  and  persuasive 
orator.  He  was  an  associate  and  counselor  of 
kings.  He  gave  Melanchthon  to  the  Reforma- 
tion, and  did  much  to  promote  it.  Luther 
recognized  in  him  a  great  light,  of  vast  service 
to  the  Gospel  in  Germany.  But  Reuchlin 
could  never  have  accomplished  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  vital  principles  of  it  were  not 
sufficiently  rooted  in  him.  He  was  a  humanist, 
whose  sympathies  went  with  the  republic  of 
letters,  not  with  the  wants  of  the  soul  and  the 
needs  of  the  people.  When  he  got  into  trouble 
he  appealed  to  the  pope.  And  though  he  lived 
to  sec  Luther  in  agonizing  conflict  with  the 
hierarchy  of  Rome,  lie  refrained  from  making 
common  eau.se  with  him,  and  died  in  connection 


ERASMUS  OF  ROTTERDAM.  21 

with  the  unreformed  Church,  whose  doctrines 
he  had  questioned  and  whose  orders  he  had  so 
unsparingly  ridiculed. 

Erasmus  of  Rotterdam. 
Erasmus  was  a  notable  man,  great  in  talent 
and  of  great  service  in  preparing  the  way  for 
the  Reformation.  He  turned  reviving  learning 
to  the  study  of  the  Word.  He  produced  the 
first,  and  for  a  long  time  the  only,  critical 
edition  of  the  New  Testament  in  the  original, 
to  which  he  added  a  Latin  translation  and 
notes.  He  paraphrased  the  Epistle  to  the 
Romans — that  great  Epistle  on  which,  above 
all,  the  Reformation  moved.  Though  once  an 
inmate  of  a  monastery,  he  abhorred  the  monks 
and  exposed  them  with  terrible  severity.  He 
had  more  friends,  reputation,  and  influence  than 
perhaps  any  other  private  man  in  Europe. 
And  he  was  deep  in  the  spirit  of  opposition 
to  the  scandalous  condition  of  things  in  the 
Church.  But  he  never  could  have  given  us 
the  Reformation.  He  said  all  honest  men 
sided  with  Luther,  and  as  an  honest  man  his 
place  would  have  been  by  Luther's  side ;  but 
he  was  too  great  a  coward.  "If  I  should  join 
Luther,"  said  he,  "I  could  only  perish  with 
him,  and  I  do  not  mean  to  run  my  neck  into 


22  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

the  halter.  Let  popes  and  emperors  settle 
matters." — "  Your  Holiness  says,  Come  to 
Rome;  you  might  as  well  tell  a  crab  to  ily. 
If  I  write  calmly  against  Luther,  I  shall  be 
called  lukewarm;  if  I  write  as  he  does,  I  shall 
stir  up  a  hornet's  nest.  .  .  .  Send  for  the  best 
and  wisest  men  in  Christendom,  and  follow 
their  advice." — "Reduce  the  dogmas  necessary 
to  be  believed  to  the  smallest  possible  number. 
On  other  points  let  every  one  believe  as  he 
likes.  Having  done  this,  quietly  correct  the 
abuses  of  which  the  world  justly  complains." 

So  wrote  Erasmus  to  the  pope  and  to  the 
archbishop  of  Mayence.  Such  was  his  ideal  of 
reformation — a  thing  as  impossible  to  bring 
into  practical  effect  as  its  realization  would 
have  been  absurd.  It  is  easy  to  tell  a  crab  to 
fly,  but  will  he  do  it  ?  As  well  propose  to  con- 
vert infallibility  with  a  fable  of  JEsop  as  to 
count  on  bringing  regeneration  to  the  hier- 
archy by  such  counsels. 

The  waters  were  too  deep  and  the  storms  too 
fierce  for  the  vacillating  Erasmus.  He  did 
sonic  excellent  service  in  his  way,  but  all  his 
counsels  and  ideas  failed,  as  they  deserved. 
Once  the  idol  of  Europe,  he  died  a  defeated, 
crushed,  and  miserable  man.  "Hercules  could 
not  light  two  monsters  at  once/'  said  he,  "  while 


ULRIC  VON  HUTTEN.  23 

I,  poor  wretch !  have  lions,  cerberuses,  cancers, 
scorpions,  every  day  at  my  sword's  point.  .  .  . 
There  is  no  rest  for  me  in  my  age,  unless  I 
join  Luther;  and  that  I  cannot,  for  I  cannot 
accept  his  doctrines.  Sometimes  I  am  stung 
with  desire  to  avenge  my  wrongs ;  but  my 
heart  says,  Will  you  in  your  spleen  raise  hand 
against  your  mother  who  begot  you  at  the  font  ? 
I  cannot  do  it.  Yet,  because  I  bade  monks 
remember  their  vows ;  because  I  told  persons 
to  leave  off  their  wranglings  and  read  the 
Bible ;  because  I  told  popes  and  cardinals  to 
look  to  the  apostles  and  be  more  like  them, — 
the  theologians  say  I  am  their  enemy." 

Thus  in  sorrow  and  in  clouds  Erasmus  passed 
away,  as  would  the  entire  Reformation  in  his 
hands. 

Ulric  von  Hutten. 

Ulric  von  Hutten,  soldier  and  knight,  equally 
distinguished  in  letters  and  in  arms,  and  called 
the  Demosthenes  of  Germany,  was  a  zeal  oik 
friend  of  reform.  He  had  been  in  Rome,  and 
sharpened  his  darts  from  what  he  there  saw  to 
hurl  them  with  effect.  All  the  powers  of  satire 
and  ridicule  he  brought  to  bear  upon  the  pil- 
lars of  the  Papacy.  He  helped  to  shake  the 
edifice,  and  his  plans  and  spirit  might  have 


24  LUTHER   AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

served  to  pull  it  down  had  lie  been  able  to 
bring  Europe  to  his  mind ;  but  it  would  only 
have  been  to  bury  society  in  its  ruins. 

Ulrich  Zwingli. 

Ulrich  Zwingli  is  ranked  among  Reformers, 
and  he  was  energetic  in  behalf  of  reform.  But 
he  fell  a  victim  to  his  own  mistakes,  and  with 
him  would  have  perished  the  Reformation  also 
had  it  depended  upon  him.  Even  had  he  lived, 
his  radical  and  rationalistic  spirit,  his  narrow 
and  fiery  patriotism,  his  shallow  religious  ex- 
perience, and  his  eagerness  to  rest  the  cause  of 
Reformation  on  civil  authority  and  the  sword, 
would  have  wrecked  it  with  nine-tenths  of  the 
European  peoples. 

Melanchthon. 

Philip  Melanchthon  wras  a  better  and  a 
greater  man,  and  did  the  Reformation  a  far 
superior  service.  Luther  would  have  been 
much  disabled  without  him,  and  Germany 
has  awarded  him  the  title  of  its  "  Precep- 
tor." But  no  Reformation  could  have  come 
if  the  lighting  or  directing  of  its  battles  had 
been  left  to  him.  Even  with  the  great  Luther 
ever   by   his   side,  he'   could    hardly   get  loose 


CA  L  VIN.  25 

from  Rome  and  retain  his  wholeness,  and 
when  he  was  loose  could  hardly  maintain  his 
legs  upon  the  ground  that  had  been  won. 

Calvin. 
John  Calvin  was  a  man  of  great  learning 
and  ability.  Marked  has  been  his  influence 
on  the  theology  and  government  of  a  large 
portion  of  the  Reformed  churches.  But  the 
Reformation  was  twelve  years  old  before  he 
came  into  it.  It  had  to  exist  already  ere  there 
could  be  a  Calvin,  while  his  repeated  flights  to 
avoid  danger  prove  how  inadequate  his  courage 
was  for  such  unflinching  duty  as  rendered  Lu- 
ther illustrious.  He  was  a  cold,  hard,  ascetic 
aristocrat  at  best,  more  cynical,  stern,  and  ty- 
rannical than  brave.  The  organization  for  the 
Church  and  civil  government  which  he  gaA^e  to 
Geneva  was  quite  too  intolerant  and  inquisi- 
torial for  safe  adoption  in  general  or  to  endure 
the  test  of  the  true  Gospel  spirit.  Under  a 
regime  which  burnt  Servetus  for  heresy,  threw 
men  into  prison  for  reading  novels,  hung  and 
beheaded  children  for  improper  behavior  to- 
ward parents,  whipped  and  banished  people  for 
singing  songs,  and  dealt  with  others  as  public 
blasphemers  if  they  said  a  word  against  the 
Reformers  or  failed  to  go  to  church,  the  cause 


26  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

of  the  Reformation  could  never  have  com- 
manded acceptance  by  the  nations,  or  have 
survived  had  it  been  received.  The  famous 
"  Blue  Laws  "  of  the  New  England  colonies 
have  had  to  be  given  up  as  a  scandal  upon 
enlightened  civilization ;  but  they  were  largely 
transcribed  from  Calvin's  code  and  counsels, 
including  even  the  punishing  of  witches.  For 
the  last  two  hundred  years  the  Calvin istic  peo- 
ples have  been  reforming  back  from  Calvin's 
rules  and  spirit,  either  to  a  better  foundation 
for  the  perpetuation  and  honor  of  the  Church 
or  to  a  rationalistic  skepticism  which  lets  go  all 
the  distinctive  elements  of  the  genuine  Chris- 
tian Creed — the  natural  reaction  from  the  hard 
and  overstrained  severity  of  a  legalistic  style 
of  Christianity. 

With  all  the  great  service  Calvin  has  ren- 
dered to  theological  science  and  church  dis- 
cipline, there  was  an  unnatural  sombreness 
about  him,  which  linked  him  rather  with  the 
Middle  Ages  and  the  hierarchical  rule  than 
with  the  glad,  free  spirit  of  a  wholesome 
Christian  life.  At  twenty-seven  he  had  al- 
ready drawn  up  a  formula  of  doctrine  and 
organizatiou  which  he  never  changed  and  to 
which  he  ever  held.  There  was  no  develop- 
ment  either  in   his  life  or  in   his  ideas.     The 


LUTHER    THE  CHOSEN  INSTRUMENT.         27 

evangelic  elements  of  his  system  he  found 
ready  to  his  hand,  as  thought  out  by  Luther 
and  the  German  theologians.  They  did  not 
originate  or  grow  with  him.  And  had  the 
Reformation  depended  upon  him  it  could 
never  have  become  a  success.  So  too  with 
any  others  that  might  be  named. 

Luther  the  Chosen  Instrument. 

We  may  not  limit  Providence.  The  work 
was  to  be  done.  Every  interest  of  the  world 
and  of  the  kingdom  of  God  demanded  it. 
And  if  there  had  been  no  Luther  at  hand, 
some  one  else  would  have  been  raised  up  to 
serve  in  his  place.  But  there  was  a  Luther, 
and,  as  far  as  human  insight  can  determine, 
he  was  the  only  man  on  earth  competent  to 
achieve  the  Reformation.  And  he  it  was 
who  did  achieve  it. 

Looked  at  in  advance,  perhaps  no  one  would 
have  thought  of  him  for  such  an  office.  He 
was  so  humbly  born,  so  lowly  in  station,  so 
destitute  of  fortune,  and  withal  so  honest 
a  Papist,  that  not  the  slightest  tokens  pre- 
sented to  mark  him  out  as  the  chosen  instru- 
ment to  grapple  with  the  magnitudinous  tyr- 
anny by  which  Europe  was  enthralled. 

But  u  God  hath  chosen  the  weak  things  of 


28  LUTHER   AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

the  world  to  confound  the  things  that  are 
mighty."  Moses  was  the  son  of  a  slave 
The  founder  of  the  Hebrew  monarchy  was 
a  shepherd-boy.     The  Redeemer-King  of  the 

world  was  born  in  a  stable  and  reared  in 
the  family  of  a  village  carpenter.  And  we 
need  not  wonder  that  the  hero-prophet  of  the 
modern  ages  was  the  son  of  a  poor  toiler  for 
his  daily  bread,  and  compelled  to  sing  upon 
the  street  for  alms  to  keep  body  and  soul  to- 
gether while  struggling  for  an  education. 

It  has  been  the  common  order  of  Provi- 
dence that  the  greatest  lights  and  benefactors 
of  the  race,  the  men  who  rose  the  highest 
above  the  level  of  their  kind  and  stood  as 
beacons  to  the  world,  were  not  such  as  would 
have  been  thought  of  in  advance  for  the 
mighty  services  which  render  their  names 
immortal.  And  that  the  master  spirit  of 
the  great  Reformation  was  no  exception  all  the 
more  surely  identifies  that  marvelous  achieve- 
ment as  the  work  of  an  overruling  God. 

Luther's  Origin. 
Luther   was   a  Saxon    German — a   German 
of   the  Germans — born   of   that  blood  out  of 
which,  with  but  tew  exeeptions,  have  sprung 

the  ruling  powers  of  the  West  since  the  last 


LUTHER'S  EARLY  TRAINING.  29 

of  the  old  Roman  emperors.  He  came  out 
of  the  bosom  of  the  freshest,  strongest,  and 
hardiest  peoples  then  existing — the  direct 
descendants  of  those  wild  Cimbrian  and  Teu- 
tonic tribes  who,  even  in  their  heathenism, 
Were  the  most  virtuous,  brave,  and  true  of  all 
the  Gentiles* 

Nor  was  he  the  offspring  of  enfeebled,  gouty, 
aristocratic  blood.  He  was  the  son  of  the 
sinewy  and  sturdy  yeomanry.  Though  tra- 
dition reports  one  of  his  remote  ancestors  in 
something  of  imperial  place  among  the  chief- 
tains of  the  semi-savage  tribes  from  which 
he  was  descended,  when  the  period  of  the 
Reformation  came  his  family  was  in  like  con- 
dition with  that  of  the  house  of  David  when 
the  Christ  was  born.  His  father  and  grand- 
father and  great-grandfather,  he  says  himself, 
were  true  Thuringian  peasants. 

Luther's  Early  Trailing. 
In  the  early  periods  of  the  mediaeval  Church 
her  missionaries  came  to  these  fiery  warriors 
of  the  North  and  followed  the  conquests  of 
Charlemagne,  to  teach  them  that  they  had 
souls,  that  there  is  a  living  and  all-knowing 
God  at  whose  judgment-bar  all  must  one 
day  stand  to  give  account,  and  that  it  would 


30  LUTHER  AND  THE  REFORMATION. 

then  be  well  with  the  believing,  brave,  honest, 
true,  and  good,  and  ill  with  cowards,  profli- 
gates, and  liars.  It  was  a  simple  creed,  but 
it  took  fast  hold  on  the  Germanic  heart, 
to  show  itself  in  sturdy  power  in  the  long 
after  years. 

This  creed,  in  unabated  force,  descended  to 
Luther's  parents,  and  lived  and  wrought  in 
them  as  a  controlling  principle.  They  were 
also  strict  to  render  it  the  same  in  their 
children. 

Hans  Luther  was  a  hard  and  stern  dis- 
ciplinarian, unsparing  in  the  enforcement  of 
every  virtue. 

Margaret  Lutheril:  was  noted  among  her 
neighbors  as  a  model  woman,  and  was  so  earn- 
est in  her  inculcations  of  right  that  she  pre- 
ferred to  see  her  son  bleed  beneath  the  rod 
rather  than  that  he  should  do  a  questionable 
thing  even  respecting  so  small  a  matter  as 
a  nut. 

From  his  childhood  Luther  was  thus  trained 


*The  maiden  name  of  Margaret  Luther,  the  mother  of  Martin, 
was  Margaret  Ziegler.  There  ha-  been  a  traditional  belief  that  her 
nam*-  was  Margaret  Lindeman.  The  mistake  originated  in  con- 
founding Luther's  grandmother,  whose  name  was  Lindeman,  with 
Luther's  mother,  whose  name  was  Ziegler,  Prof.  Julius  Kostlin, 
in  his  Life  qf  Luther,  after  a  thorough  examination  of  original 
recordw  and  documents,  gives  thifl  explanation. 


LUTHER'S  EARLY  TRAINING.  31 

and  attempered  to  fear  God,  reverence  truth 
and  honesty,  and  hate  hypocrisy  and  lies. 
Possibly  his  parents  were  severer  with  him 
than  was  necessary,  but  it  was  well  for  him,  as 
the  prospective  prophet  of  a  new  era,  to  learn 
absolute  obedience  to  those  who  were  to  him 
the  representatives  of  that  divine  authority 
which  he  was  to  teach  the  world  supremely 
to  obey. 

But  no  birth,  or  blood,  or  parental  drilling, 
or  any  mere  human  culture,  could  give  the 
qualities  necessary  to  a  successful  Reformer. 
The  Church  had  fallen  into  all  manner  of  evils, 
because  it  had  drifted  away  from  the  apostolic 
doctrine  as  to  how  a  man  shall  be  just  with 
God,  which  is  the  all-conditioning  question 
of  all  right  religion.  There  could  then  be  no 
cure  for  those  evils  except  by  the  bringing  of 
the  Church  back  to  that  doctrine.  But  to  do 
anything  effectual  toward  such  a  recovery  it 
was  pre-eminently  required  that  the  Reformer 
himself  should  first  be  brought  to  an  experi- 
mental knowledge  of  what  was  to  be  witnessed 
and  taught. 

On  two  different  theatres,  therefore,  the 
Reformation  had  to  be  wrought  out:  first,  in 
the  Reformer's  own  soul,  and  then  on  the  field 
of  the  world  outside  of  him. 


32        luther  and  the  reformation. 

What  the  Reformation  was. 

It  is  hard  to  take  in  the  depth  and  magnitude 
of  what  is  called  The  Great  Reformation.  It 
stands  out  in  history  like  a  range  of  Him- 
alayan mountains,  whose  roots  reach  down 
into  the  heart  of  the  world  and  whose  sum- 
mits pierce  beyond  the  clouds. 

To  Bossuet  and  Voltaire  it  was  a  mere 
squabble  of  the  monks ;  to  others  it  was  the 
eirpidity  of  secular  sovereigns  and  lay  nobility 
grasping  for  the  power,  estates,  and  riches  of 
the  Church.  Some  treat  of  it  as  a  simple 
reaction  against  religious  scandals,  with  no 
great  depths  of  principle  or  meaning  except 
to  illustrate  the  recuperative  power  of  human 
society  to  cure  itself  of  oppressive  ills.  Guizot 
describes  it  as  "a  vast  effort  of  the  human  mind 
to  achieve  its  freedom — a  great  endeavor  to 
emancipate  human  reason."  Lord  Bacon  takes 
it  as  the  reawakening  of  antiquity  and  the 
recall  of  former  times  to  reshape  and  fashion 
our  own. 

Whatever  of  truth  some  of  these  estimates 
m;i\  contain,  they  fall  far  short  of  a  correct 
idea  of  what  the  Reformation  was,  or  wherein 
lay  the  vital  spring  of  that  wondrous  revolu- 
tion.    Its  historic  and  philosophic  centre  was 


WHAT  THE  REFORMATION  WAS.  33 

vastly  deeper  and  more  potent  than  either  or 
all  of  these  conceptions  would  make  it.  Many 
influences  contributed  to  its  accomplishment, 
but  its  inmost  principle  was  unique.  The 
real  nerve  of  the  Reformation  was  religious. 
Its  life  was  something  different  from  mere 
earthly  interests,  utilities,  aims,  or  passions. 
Its  seat  was  in  the  conscience.  Its  true  spring 
was  the  soul,  confronted  by  eternal  judgment, 
trembling  for  its  estate  before  divine  Almighti- 
ness,  and,  on  pain  of  banishment  from  every 
immortal  good,  forced  to  condition  and  dispose 
itself  according  to  the  clear  revelations  of  God. 
It  was  not  mere  negation  to  an  oppressive  hier- 
archy, except  as  it  was  first  positive  and  evan- 
gelic touching  the  direct  and  indefeasible 
relations  and  obligations  of  the  soul  to  its 
Maker.  Only  when  the  hierarchy  claimed 
to  qualify  these  direct  relations  and  obliga- 
tions, thrust  itself  between  the  soul  and  its 
Redeemer,  and  by  eternal  j>enalties  sought  to 
hold  the  conscience  bound  to  human  author- 
ities and  traditions,  did  the  Reformation  pro- 
test and  take  issue.  Had  the  inalienable 
right  and  duty  to  obey  God  rather  than  man 
been  conceded,  the  hierarchy,  as  such,  might 
have  remained,  the  same  as  monarchical  gov- 
ernment.    But    this    the  hierarchy  negatived, 

3 


34  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

condemned,  and  would  by  no  means  tolerate 
Hence  the  mighty  contest.  And  the  heart, 
sum,  and  essence  of  the  whole  struggle  was 
the  maintenance  and  the  working  out  into 
living  fact  of  this  direct  obligation  of  the 
soul  to  God  and  the  supreme  authority  of  His 
clear  and  unadulterated  word. 

Spiritual  Training. 

How  Luther  came  to  these  principles,  and 
the  fiery  trials  by  which  they  were  burnt  into 
him  as  part  of  his  inmost  self,  is  one  of  the 
most  vital  chapters  in  the  history. 

His  father  had  designed  him  for  the  law. 
To  this  end  he  had  gone  through  the  best 
schools  of  Germany,  taken  his  master's  degree, 
and  was  advancing  in  the  particular  studies 
relating  to  his  intended  profession,  when  a 
sudden  change  came  over  his  life. 

Religious  in  his  temper  and  training,  and 
educated  in  a  creed  which  worked  mainly  on 
man's  fears,  without  emphasizing  the  only 
basis  of  spiritual  peace,  he  fell  into  great 
terrors  of  conscience.  Several  occurrences 
contributed  to  this  :  (1)  He  fell  sick,  and  was 
likely  to  die.  (2)  He  accidentally  severed 
an  artery,  and  came  near  bleeding  to  death. 
(3)  A  bosom  friend  of  his  was  suddenly  killed. 


SPIRITUAL   TRAINING.  35 

All  this  made  him  think  how  it  would  be 
with  him  if  called  to  stand  before  God  in 
judgment,  and  filled  him  with  alarm.  Then 
(4)  he  was  one  day  overtaken  by  a  thunder- 
storm of  unwonted  violence.  The  terrific 
scene  presented  to  his  vivid  fancy  all  the 
horrors  of  a  mediaeval  picture  of  the  Last  Day 
and  himself  about  to  be  plunged  into  eternal 
fire.  Overwhelmed  with  terror,  he  cried  to 
Heaven  for  help,  and  vowed,  if  spared,  to 
devote  himself  to  the  salvation  of  his  soul 
by  becoming  a  monk.  His  father  hated 
monkery,  and  he  shared  the  feeling ;  but,  if 
it  would  save  him,  why  hesitate  ?  What  was 
a  father's  displeasure  or  the  loss  of  all  the 
favors  of  the  world  to  his  safety  against  a 
hopeless  perdition? 

Call  it  superstition,  call  it  religious  melan- 
choly, call  it  morbid  hallucination,  it  was  a 
most  serious  matter  to  the  young  Luther,  and 
out  of  it  ultimately  grew  the  Reformation. 
False  ideas  underlay  the  resolve,  but  it  was 
profoundly  sincere  and  according  to  the  ideas 
of  ages.  It  was  wrong,  but  he  could  not  cor- 
rect the  error  until  he  had  tested  it.  And 
thus,  by  what  he  took  as  the  unmistakable 
call   of  God,  he  entered  the  cloister. 

Nevei    man    went    into   a   monastery    with 


36  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

purer  motives.  Never  a  man  went  through 
the  duties,  drudgeries,  and  humiliations  of  the 
novitiate  of  convent-life  with  more  unshrink- 
ing fidelity.  Never  man  endured  more  pain- 
ful mental  and  bodily  agonies  that  he  might 
secure  for  himself  an  assured  spiritual  peace. 
Romanists  have  expressed  their  wonder  that 
so  pure  a  man  thought  himself  so  great  a  sin- 
ner. But  a  sinner  he  was,  as  we  all ;  and  to 
avert  the  just  anger  of  God  he  fasted,  prayed, 
and  mortified  himself  like  an  anchorite  of 
the  Thebaid.  And  yet  no  peace  or  comfort 
came. 

A  chained  Bible  lay  in  the  monastery.  He 
had  previously  found  a  copy  of  it  in  the  library 
of  the  university.  Day  and  night  he  read  it, 
along  with  the  writings  of  St.  Augustine.  In 
both  he  found  the  same  pictures  of  man's  de- 
pravity which  he  realized  in  himself,  but  God's 
remedy  for  sin  he  had  not  found.  In  the  earn- 
estness of  his  studies  the  prescribed  devotions 
were  betimes  crowded  out,  and  then  he  pun- 
ished himself  without  mercy  to  redeem  his 
failures.  Whole  nights  and  days  together  lie 
lay  upon  his  face  crying  to  ( Jod,  till  lie  swooned 
in  liis  agony.  Everything  his  brother-monks 
could  till  him  lie  tried,  but  all  the  resources  of 
their  religion   were  powerless   to  comfort   him 


SPIRITUAL   TRAINING.  37 

or  to  beget  a  righteousness  in  which  his  an- 
guished soul  could  trust. 

It  happened  that  one  of  the  exceptionally 
enlightened  and  spiritual-minded  monks  of  his 
time,  John  Stawpitz,  was  then  the  vicar-general 
of  the  Augustinians  in  Saxony.  On  his  tour 
of  inspection  he  came  to  Erfurt,  and  there 
found  Luther,  a  walking  skeleton,  more  dead 
than  alive.  He  was  specially  drawn  to  the 
haggard  young  brother.  The  genial  and  sym- 
pathizing spirit  of  the  vicar-general  made 
Luther  feel  at  home  in  his  presence,  and  to 
him  he  freely  opened  his  whole  heart,  telling 
of  his  feelings,  failures,  and  fears — his  heart- 
aches, his  endeavors,  his  disappointments,  and 
his  despair.  And  God  put  the  right  words 
into  the  vicar-general's  mouth. 

"Look  to  the  wounds  of  Jesus,"  said  he, 
"  and  to  the  blood  he  shed  for  you,  and  there 
see  the  mercy  of  God.  Cast  yourself  into  the 
Redeemer's  arms,  and  trust  in  his  righteous 
life  and  sacrificial  death.  He  loved  you  first  ; 
love  him  in  return,  and  let  your  penances  and 
mortifications  go." 

The  oppressed  and  captive  spirit  began  to 
feel  its  burden  lighten  under  such  discourse. 
God  a  God  of  love!  Piety  a  life  of  love! 
Salvation  by  loving  trust  in   a  God  already 


38  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

reconciled  in  Christ!  This  was  a  new  rev- 
elation. It  brought  the  sorrowing  young  Lu- 
ther to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures  with  a  new 
object  of  search.  He  read  and  meditated,  and 
began  to  see  the  truth  of  what  his  vicar  said. 
But  doubts  would  come,  and  often  his  gloom 
returned. 

One  day  an  aged  monk  came  to  his  cell  to 
comfort  him.  He  said  he  only  knew  his  Creed, 
but  in  that  he  rested,  reciting,  "I  believe  in  the 
forgiveness  of  sins." — "And  do  I  not  believe 
that?"  said  Luther. — "Ah,"  said  the  old  monk, 
"  you  believe  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins  for  Da- 
vid and  Peter  and  the  thief  on  the  cross,  but 
you  do  not  believe  in  the  forgiveness  of  sins 
for  yourself.  St.  Bernard  says  the  Holy 
Ghost  speaks  it  to  your  own  soul,  Thy  sins 
are  forgiven  thee." 

And  so  at  last  the  right  nerve  was  touched. 
The  true  word  of  God's  deliverance  was  brought 
home  to  Luther's  understanding.  He  was  pen- 
itent and  in  earnest,  and  needed  only  this  great 
Gospel  hope  to  lift  him  from  the  horrible  pit 
and  the  miry  clay.  As  a  light  from  heaven  it 
came  to  his  soul,  and  there  remained,  a  com- 
fort and  a  joy.  The  glad  conclusion  Hashed 
upon  him,  never  more  to  be  shaken,  "If  God, 
for   Christ's   sake,   takes   away    our   sins,    then 


LUTHER'S  DEVELOPMENT.  39 

they  are  not  taken  away  by  any  works  of 
ours." 

The  foundation-rock  of  a  new  world  was 
reached. 

Luther  saw  not  yet  what  all  this  discovery 
meant,  nor  whither  it  would  lead.  He  was  as 
innocent  of  all  thought  of  being  a  Reformer 
as  a  new-born  babe  is  of  commanding  an 
army  on  the  battlefield.  But  the  Gospel 
principle  of  deliverance  and  salvation  for 
his  oppressed  and  anxious  soul  was  found, 
and  it  was  found  for  all  the  world.  The 
anchor  had  taken  hold  on  a  new  continent. 
In  essence  the  Great  Reformation  was  born — 
born  in  Luther's  soul. 

Luther's  Development. 
More  than  ten  years  passed  before  this  new 
principle  began  to  work  off  the  putrid  carcass 
of  mediaeval  religion  which  lay  stretched  over 
the  stifled  and  suffocating  Church  of  Christ. 
There  were  yet  many  steps  and  stages  in  the 
preparation  for  what  was  to  come.  But  from 
that  time  forward  everything  moved  toward 
general  regeneration  by  means  of  that  marrow 
doctrine  of  the  Gospel:  Salvation  by  loving 
faith  in  the  merit  and  mediation  of  Jesus 
alone. 


40  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

Staupitz  counseled  the  young  monk  to  study 
the  Scriptures  well  and  whatever  could  aid 
him  in  their  right  understanding,  and  gave 
orders  to  the  monastery  not  to  interfere  with 
his  studies. 

On  May  2,  1507,  he  was  consecrated  to  the 
priesthood. 

Within  the  year  following,  at  the  instance 
of  Staupitz,  Frederick  the  Wise  appointed 
him  professor  in  the  new  University  of  Wit- 
tenberg. 

May  9,  1509,  he  took  his  degree  of  bachelor 
of  divinity.  From  that  time  he  began  to  use 
his  place  to  attack  the  falsehoods  of  the  pre- 
vailing philosophy  and  to  explore  and  expose 
the  absurdities  of  Scholasticism,  dwelling  much 
on  the  great  Gospel  treasure  of  God's  free 
amnesty  to  sinful  man  through  the  merits  and 
mediation  of  Jesus  Christ,  on  which  his  own 
soul  was  planted. 

Staupitz  was  astounded  at  the  young  broth- 
er's thorough  mastery  of  the  sacred  Word,  the 
minuteness  of  his  knowledge  of  it,  and  the 
power  with  which  he  expounded  and  defended 
the  great  principles  of  the  evangelic  faith.  So 
able  a  teacher  of  the  doctrines  of  the  cross 
must  at  once  begin  to  preach.  Luther  remon- 
strated, for  it  was  not  then  the  custom  for  all 


LUTHER'S  DEVELOPMENT.  41 

priests  to  preach.  He  insisted  that  he  would 
die  under  the  weight  of  such  responsibilities. 
"  Die,  then,"  said  Staupitz ;  "  God  has  plenty 
to  do  for  intelligent  young  men  in  heaven." 

A  little  old  wooden  chapel,  daubed  with 
clay,  twenty  by  thirty  feet  in  size,  with  a 
crude  platform  of  rough  boards  at  one  end 
and  a  small  sooty  gallery  for  scarce  twenty 
persons  at  the  other,  and  propped  on  all  sides 
to  keep  it  from  tumbling  down,  was  assigned 
him  as  his  cathedral.  Myconius  likens  it  to 
the  stable  of  Bethlehem,  as  there  Christ  was 
born  anew  for  the  souls  which  now  crowded 
to  it.  And  when  the  thronging  audiences 
required  his  transfer .  to  the  parish  church, 
it  was  called  the  bringing  of  Christ  into  the 
temple. 

The  fame  of  this  young  theologian  and 
preacher  spread  fast  and  far.  The  common 
people  and  the  learned  were  alike  impressed 
by  his  originality  and  power,  and  rejoiced  in 
the  electrifying  clearness  of  his  expositions 
and  teachings.  The  Elector  was  delighted, 
for  he  began  to  see  his  devout  wishes  realized. 
Staupitz,  who  had  drunk  in  the  more  pious 
spirit  of  the  Mystic  theologians,  shared  the 
same  feeling,  and  saw  in  Luther's  fresh, 
biblical,    and    energetic    preaching    what    he 


42  LUTHER  AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

felt  the  whole  Church  needed.  "  He  spared 
neither  counsel  nor  applause/'  for  he  believed 
him  the  man  of  God  for  the  times.  He  sent 
him  to  neighboring  monasteries  to  preach  to 
the  monks.  He  gave  him  every  opportunity 
to  study,  observe,  and  exercise  his  great  talents. 
He  even  sent  him  on  a  mission  to  Rome,  more 
to  acquaint  him  with  that  city,  which  he 
longed  to  see,  than  for  any  difficult  or  press- 


ing business  with  the 


*o 


pope. 


Luther's  Visit  to  Rome. 

Luther  jDerformed  the  journey  on  foot,  passing 
from  monastery  to  monastery,  noting  the  ex- 
travagances, indolence,  gluttony,  and  infidelity 
of  the  monks,  and  sometimes  in  danger  of  his 
life,  both  from  the  changes  of  climate  and 
from  the  murderous  resentments  of  some  of 
these  cloister-saints  which  his  rebukes  of  their 
vices  engendered. 

When  Rome  first  broke  upon  his  sight,  he 
hailed  it  reverently  as  the  city  of  saints  and 
holy  martyrs.  He  almost  envied  those  whose 
parents  were  dead,  and  who  had  it  in  their 
power  to  offer  prayers  for  the  repose  of  their 
souls  by  the  side  of  such  holy  shrines.  But 
when  he  beheld  the  vulgarities,  profanities, 
paganism,    and    unconcealed     unbelief    which 


LUTHER'S   VISIT  TO  ROME.  43 

pervaded  even  the  ecclesiastical  circles  of  that 
city,  his  soul  sunk  within  him. 

There  was  much  to  be  seen  in  Rome ;  and 
the  Roman  Catholic  writers  find  great  fault 
with  Luther  for  being  so  dull  and  un apprecia- 
tive as  to  move  amid  it  without  beins:  touched 
with  a  single  spark  of  poetic  fire.  They  tell 
of  the  glory  of  the  cardinals,  in  litters,  on 
horseback,  in  glittering  carriages,  blazing  with 
jewels  and  shaded  with  gorgeous  canopies ;  of 
marble  palaces,  grand  walks,  alabaster  col- 
umns, gigantic  obelisks,  villas,  gardens,  grot- 
toes, flowers,  fountains,  cascades;  of  churches 
adorned  with  polished  pillars,  gilded  soffits, 
mosaic  floors,  altars  sparkling  with  diamonds, 
and  gorgeous  pictures  from  master-hands  look- 
ing down  from  every  wall ;  of  monuments, 
statues,  images,  and  holy  relics ;  and  they 
blame  Luther  that  he  could  gaze  upon  it  all 
without  a  stir  of  admiration — that  lie  could 
look  upon  the  sculpture  and  statuary  and  see 
nothing  but  pagan  devices,  the  gods  of  De- 
mosthenes and  Praxiteles,  the  feasts  and  pomps 
of  Delos,  and  the  idle  scenes  of  the  heat  lien 
Forum — that  no  gleam  from  the  crown  of 
Perugino  or  Michael  Angelo  dazzled  his  eyes, 
and  no  strain  of  Virgil  or  of  Dante,  which 
the   people  sung  in    the   streets,  attracted  his 


44  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION 

ear — that  he  was  only  cold  and  dumb  before 
all  the  treasures  and  glories  of  art  and  all  the 
grandeur  of  the  high  dignitaries  of  the  Church, 
seeing  nothing,  feeling  nothing,  exclaiming 
over  nothing  but  the  licentious  impurities  of 
the  priests,  the  pagan  pomps  of  the  pontiff, 
the  profane  jests  of  the  ministers  of  religion, 
the  bare  shoulders  of  the  Roman  ladies. 

Luther  was  not  dead  to  the  aesthetic,  but  to 
see  faith  and  righteousness  thus  smothered  and 
buried  under  a  godless  Epicurean  life  was  an 
offence  to  his  honest  German  conscience.  It 
looked  to  him  as  if  the  popes  had  reversed  the 
Saviour's  choice,  and  accepted  the  devil's  bid 
for  Christ  to  worship  him.  From  what  his 
own  eyes  and  ears  had  now  seen  and  heard,  he 
knew  what  to  believe  concerning  the  state  of 
things  in  the  metropolis  of  Christendom,  and 
was  satisfied  that,  as  surely  as  there  is  a  hell, 
the  Rome  of  those  days  was  its  mouth.* 

*  Bellarmine,  an  honored  author  of  the  Roman  Church,  one 
competent  to  judge  concerning  the  state  of  tilings  at  that  time,  and 
not  over-forward  to  confess  it,  says :  "  For  some  years  hefore  the 
Lutheran  and  (alvinistic  heresies  were  published  there  was  aot 
(as  contemporary  authors  testify)  any  rigor  in  ecclesiastical  judica- 
tories, any  discipline  with  regard  to  morals,  any  knowledge  of 
sacred  literature,  any  reverence  for   divine  things:  THERE  was 

almost  no  RELIGION  REMAINING."  —  P»U<inn.,  Concio  xviii., 
Opera,  torn.  vi.  col.  '29»>,  edit.  Colon.,  1017,  apud  GerJesii  JIusU 
Emu.  Renovati,  vol.  i.  p.  25. 


LUTHER  MADE  A  DOCTOR.  45 

Luther  as  Town-Preacher. 

On  his  return  the  Senate  of  Wittenberg 
elected  him  town-preacher.  In  the  cloister, 
in  the  castle  chapel,  and  in  the  collegiate 
church  he  alternately  exercised  his  gifts. 
Romanists  admit  that  "  his  success  was  great. 
He  said  he  would  not  imitate  his  predecessors, 
and  he  kept  his  word.  For  the  first  time  a 
Christian  preacher  was  seen  to  abandon  the 
Schoolmen  and  draw  his  texts  and  illustrations 
from  the  writings  of  inspiration.  He  was  the 
originator  and  restorer  of  expository  preach- 
ing in  modern  times." 

The  Elector  heard  him,  and  was  filled  with 
admiration.  An  old  professor,  whom  the  peo- 
ple called  "  the  light  of  the  world,"  listened  to 
him,  and  was  struck  with  his  wonderful  in- 
sight, his  marvelous  imagination,  and  his  mas- 
sive solidity.  And  Wittenberg  sprang  into 
great  renown  because  of  him,  for  never  before 
had  been  heard  in  Saxony  such  a  luminous 
expositor  of  God's  holy  Word. 

Luther  made  a  Doctor. 
On  all  hands  it  was  agreed  and  insisted  that 
he  should  be  made  a  doctor  of  divinity.     The 
costs  were  heavy,  for  simony  was  the  order  of 


46  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION 

the  day  and  the  pope  exacted  high  prices  for 
all  church  promotions;  but  the  Elector  paid 
the  charges. 

On  the  18th  of  October,  1512,  the  degree 
was  conferred.  It  was  no  empty  title  to 
Luther.  It  gave  him  liberties  and  rights 
which  his  enemies  could  not  gainsay,  and  it 
laid  on  him  obligations  and  duties  which  he 
never  forgot.  The  obedience  to  the  canons 
and  the  hierarchy  which  it  exacted  he  after- 
ward found  inimical  to  Christ  and  the  Gospel, 
and,  as  in  duty  bound,  he  threw  it  off,  with 
other  swaddling-bands  of  Popery.  But  there 
was  in  it  the  pledge  "  to  devote  his  whole  life 
to  the  study,  exposition,  and  defence  of  the 
Holy  Scriptures."  This  he  accepted,  and  ever 
referred  to  as  his  sacred  charter  and  commis- 
sion. Nor  was  it  without  significance  that  the 
great  bell  of  Wittenberg  was  rung  when  proc- 
lamation of  this  investiture  was  made.  As 
the  ringing  of  the  bell  on  the  old  State-house 
when  the  Declaration  of  Independence  was 
passed  proclaimed  the  coming  liberties  of  the 
American  colonies,  so  this  sounding  of  the 
great  bell  of  Wittenberg  when  Luther  was 
made  doctor  of  divinity  proclaimed  and  her- 
alded to  the  nations  of  the  earth  the  coming 
deliverance    of  the    enslaved    Church.     L\od'x 


LUTHER  AS  A  DOCTOR.  47 

chosen  servant  had  received   his   commission, 
and  the  better  day  was  soon  to  dawn. 

Henceforth  Luther's  labors  and  studies  went 
forward  with  a  new  impulse  and  inspiration 
Hebrew  and  Greek  were  thoroughly  mastered. 
The  Fathers  of  the  Church,  ancient  and  mod- 
ern, were  carefully  read.  The  systems  of  the 
Schoolmen,  the  Book  of  Sentences,  the  Com- 
mentaries, the  Decretals — everything  relating 
to  his  department  as  a  doctor  of  theology — 
were  examined,  and  brought  to  the  test  of 
Holy  Scripture. 

In  his  sermons,  lectures,  and  disquisitions 
the  results  of  these  incessant  studies  came  out 
with  a  depth  of  penetration,  a  clearness  of 
statement,  a  simplicity  of  utterance,  a  devout- 
ness  of  spirit,  and  a  convincing  power  of  elo- 
quence which,  with  the  eminent  sanctity  of 
his  life,  won  for  him  unbounded  praise.  The 
common  feeling  was  that  the  earth  did  not 
contain  another  such  a  doctor  and  had  not 
seen  his  equal  for  many  ages.  Envy  and 
jealousy  themselves,  those  green-eyed  monsters 
which  gather  about  the  paths  of  great  qualities 
and  successes,  seemed  for  the  time  to  be  para- 
lyzed before  a  brilliancy  which  rested  on  such 
humility,  conscientiousness,  fidelity,  and  merit. 


48        luther  and  the  reformation. 

Luther's  Laboks. 

Years  of  fruitful  labor  passed.  The  Deca- 
logue was  exjDOunded.  Paul's  letter  to  the 
Romans  and  the  penitential  Psalms  were  ex- 
plained. The  lectures  on  the  Epistle  to  the 
Galatians  were  nearly  completed.  But  no 
book  from  Luther  had  yet  been  published. 

In  1515  he  was  chosen  district  vicar  of  the 
Augustinian  monasteries  of  Meissen  and  Thu- 
rmgia.  It  was  a  laborious  office,  but  it  gave 
him  new  experiences,  familiarized  him  still 
more  with  the  monks,  brought  him  into  exec- 
utive administrations,  and  developed  his  tact 
in  dealing  with  men. 

One  other  particular  served  greatly  to  estab- 
lish him  in  the  hearts  of  the  j)eople.  A  dead- 
ly plague  broke  out  in  Wittenberg.  Citizens 
were  dying  by  dozens  and  scores.  At  a 
later  period  a  like  scourge  visited  Geneva, 
and  so  terrified  Calvin  and  his  ministerial 
associates  that  they  appealed  to  the  Supreme 
Council,  entreating,  "Mighty  lords,  release 
us  from  attending  these  infected  people,  for 
our  lives  are  in  peril."  Not  so  Luther.  His 
friends  said,  4t  Fly  !  fly !"  lest  he  should  fall  by 
the  plague  and  be  lost  to  the  world.  "Fly?" 
said  he.     "  No,  no,  my  God.     If  I  die,  I  die. 


COLLISION    WITH  THE  HIERARCHY  49 

The  world  will  not  perish  because  a  monk 
has  fallen.  I  am  not  St.  Paul,  not  to  fear 
death,  but  God  will  sustain  me."  And  as 
an  angel  of  mercy  he  remained,  ministering 
to  the  sick  and  dying  and  caring  for  the  or- 
phans and  widows  of  the  dead. 

Collision  with  the  Hierarchy. 

Such  was  Luther  up  to  the  time  of  his 
rupture  with  Rome.  He  knew  something  of 
the  shams  and  falsities  that  prevailed,  and  he 
had  assailed  and  exposed  many  of  them  in 
his  lectures  and  sermons ;  but  to  lead  a  general 
reformation  was  the  farthest  from  his  thoughts. 
Indeed,  he  still  had  such  confidence  in  the 
integrity  of  the  Roman  Church  that  he  did 
not  yet  realize  how  greatly  a  thorough  general 
reformation  was  needed.  Humble  in  mind, 
peaceable  in  disposition,  reverent  toward  au- 
thority, loving  privacy,  and  fully  occupied 
with  his  daily  studies  and  duties,  it  was  not 
in  him  to  think  of  making  war  with  powers 
whose  claims  he  had  not  yet  learned  to  ques- 
tion. 

But  it  was  not  possible  that  so  brave,  hon- 
est, and  self-sacrificing  a  man  should  long 
pursue  his  convictions  without  coming  into 
collision    with   the    Roman    high    priesthood. 


50  LUTHER   AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

Though  far  off  at  Wittenberg,  and  trying 
to  do  his  own  duty  well  in  his  own  legitimate 
sphere,  it  soon  came  athwart  his  path  in  a 
form  so  foul  and  offensive  that  it  forced  him 
to  assault  it.  Either  he  had  to  let  go  his 
sincerest  convictions  and  dearest  hopes  or 
protest  had  to  come.  His  personal  salvation 
and  that  of  his  flock  were  at  stake,  and  he 
could  in  no  way  remain  a  true  man  and  not 
remonstrate.  Driven  to  this  extremity,  and 
struck  at  for  his  honest  faithfulness,  he  struck 
asraii! ;  and  so  came  the  battle  which  shook 
and  revolutionized  the  world. 

The  Selling  of  Indulgences. 

Luther's  first  encounter  with  the  hierarchy 
was  on  the  traffic  in  indulgences.  It  was  a 
good  fortune  that  it  there  began.  That  traffic 
was  so  obnoxious  to  every  sense  of  propriety 
that  any  vigorous  attack  upon  it  would  com- 
mand the  approval  of  many  honest  and  pious 
people.  The  central  heresy  of  hierarchical 
religion  was  likewise  embodied  in  it,  so  that 
a  stab  there,  if  logically  followed  up,  would 
necessarily  reach  the  very  heart  of  the  oppres- 
sive monster.  And  Providence  arranged  that 
there  the  conflict  should  begin. 

Leo  X.  had  but  recently  ascended  the  papa] 


THE  SELLING   OF  INDULGENCES.  51 

throne.  Reared  amid  lavish  wealth  and  cul- 
ture, he  was  eager  that  his  reign  should  equal 
that  of  Solomon  and  the  Caesars.  He  sought 
to  aggrandize  his  relatives,  to  honor  and  enrich 
men  of  genius,  and  to  surround  himself  with 
costly  splendors  and  pleasures.  These  de- 
manded extraordinary  revenues.  The  projects 
of  his  ambitious  predecessors  had  depleted  the 
papal  coffers.  He  needed  to  do  something  on 
a  grand  scale  in  order  adequately  to  replenish 
his  exchequer. 

As  early  as  the  eleventh  century  the  popes 

|  had  betimes  resorted  to  the  selling  of  pardons 

|  and  the  issuing  of  free  passes  to  heaven  on 

consideration   of  certain  services  or  payments 

jj  to  the    Church.     From  Urban  II.  to  Leo  X. 

•this  was  more  or  less  in  vogue — first,  to  get 

Wldiers    for   the   holy  wars,*  and   then    as  a 

means  of  wealth  to  the  Church.     If  one  wished 

*  In  the  famous  Bull  of  Gregory  IX.,  published  in  1234,  that 
pope  exhorts  and  commands  all  good  Christians  to  take  up  the 
cross  and  join  the  expedition  to  recover  the  Holy  Land.  The 
language  is:  "The  service  to  which  mankind  are  now  invited  is 
an  effectual  atonement  for  the  miscarriages  of  a  negligent  life. 
The  discipline  of  a  regular  penance  would  have  discouraged  many 
offenders  so  much  that  they  would  have  had  no  heart  to  venture 
upon  it;  but  the  holy  war  is  a  compendious  method  of  discharging 
men  from  guilt  and  restoring  them  to  the  divine  favor.  Even  if 
they  die  on  their  march,  the  intention  will  be  taken  for  the  deed, 
and  many  in  this  way  may  be  crowned  without  fighting."— Given 
in  Collier's  EccL,  vol.  i. 


52  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

to  eat  meat  on  fast-days,  marry  within  pro- 
hibited degrees  of  relationship,  or  indulge  in 
forbidden  pleasures,  he  could  do  it  without 
offence  by  rendering  certain  satisfactions  before 
or  after,  which  satisfactions  could  mostly  be 
made  by  payments  of  money.*  In  the  same 
way  he  could  buy  remission  of  sins  in  general, 
or  exemption  for  so  many  days,  years,  or  cen- 
turies from  the  pains  of  Purgatory.  Bulls  of 
authority  were  given,  in  the  name  of  the 
Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost,  to  issue  cer- 
tificates of  exemption  from  all  penalties  to 
such  as  did  the  service  or  paid  the  equivalent. 
Immense  incomes  were  thus  realized.  Even 
to  the  present  this  facile  invention  for  raising 
money  has  not  been  entirely  discontinued. 
Papal  indulgences  can  be  bought  to-day  in 
the  shops  of  Spain  and  elsewhere. 

Leo  seized  upon  this  system  with  all  the 
vigor  and  unscrupulousness  characteristic  of 
the  Medici.  Had  he  been  asked  whether  he 
really    believed    in    these    pardons,    he    would 

*  The  Roman  Chancery  once  put  forth  a  book,  which  went 
through  many  editions,  giving  the  exact  prices  for  the  pardon  <>i' 
each  particular  sin.  A  deacon  guilty  of  murder  was  absolved  for 
twenty  pounds.  ■  A  bishop  or  abbot  might  assassinate  for  three 
hundred  livres.  Any  ecclesiastic  might  violate  his  vow-  of 
tity  for  i  he  third  part  of  that  sum,  etc.,  etc. — See  Robertson's 
Charles  V. 


THE  SELLING    OF  INDULGENCES.  53 

have  said  that  the  Church  always  believed 
the  pope  had  power  to  grant  them.  Had 
he  spoken  his  real  mind  in  the  matter, 
he  would  have  said  that  if  the  people  chose 
to  be  such  fools,  it  was  not  for  him  to 
find  fault  with  them.  And  thus,  under  plea 
of  raising  funds  to  finish  St.  Peter's,  he  insti- 
tuted a  grand  trade  in  indulgences,  and  there- 
by laid  the  caj^stone  of  hierarchical  iniquity 
which  crushed  the  whole  fabric  to  its  base. 

The  right  to  sell  these  wares  in  Germany 
was  awarded  to  Albert,  the  gay  young  prince- 
archbishop  of  Mayence.  He  was  over  head 
and  ears  in  debt  to  the  pope  for  his  pallium, 
and  Leo  gave  him  this  chance  to  get  out.* 
Half  the  proceeds  of  the  trade  in  his  territory 
were  to  go  to  his   credit.     But  the  work   of 

*The  pallium,  or  pall,  was  a  narrow  band  of  white  wool  to  go 
over  the  shoulders  in  the  form  of  a  circle,  from  which  hung  bands 
of  siinihir  size  before  and  behind,  finished  at  the  ends  with  pieces 
of  sheet  lead  and  embroidered  with  crosses.  It  was  the  mark  of 
the  dignity  and  rank  of  archbishops.  Albert  owed  Pope  Leo  X. 
forty-five  thousand  thalers  for  his  right  and  appointment  to  wear 
the  archbishop's  pallium. 

It  was  in  this  way  that  the  Roman  Church  was  accustomed  to 
sell  out  benefices  as  a  divine  right.  Even  expected  ire  graces,  or 
mandates  nominating  a  person  to  succeed  to  a  benefice  upon  the 
first  vacancy,  were  thus  sold.  Companies  existed  in  Germany 
which  made  a  business  of  buying  up  the  benefices  of  particular 
sections  and  districts  and  retailing  them  at  advanced  rites.  The 
selling  of  pardons  was  simply  a  lower  kind  of  simoniacal  bartering 
which  pervaded  the  whole  hierarchical  establishment. 


64  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

proclaiming  and  distributing  the  pardons  was 
committed  to  John  Tetzel,  a  Dominican  prior 
who  had  long  experience  in  the  business,  and 
who  achieved  "  a  forlorn  notoriety  in  Eu- 
ropean history  "  by  his  zeal  in  prosecuting  it. 

Tetzel's  Performances. 

Tetzel  entered  the  towns  with  noise  and 
pomp,  amid  waving  of  flags,  singing,  and  the 
ringing  of  bells.  Clergy,  choristers,  monks, 
and  nuns  moved  in  procession  before  and  after 
him.  He  himself  sat  in  a  gilded  chariot,  with 
the  Bull  of  his  authority  spread  out  on  a  vel- 
vet cushion  before  him. 

The  churches  were  his  salesrooms,  lighted 
and  decorated  for  the  occasion  as  in  highest 
festival.  From  the  pulpits  his  boisterous 
oratory  rang,  telling  the  virtues  of  indulg- 
ences, the  wonderful  power  of  the  keys,  and 
the  unexampled  grace  of  which  he  was  the 
bearer  from  the  holy  lord  and  father  at  Rome. 

He  called  on  all — robbers,  adulterers,  mur- 
derers, everybody — to  draw  near,  pay  down 
their  money,  and  receive  from  him  letters, 
duly  sealed,  by  which  all  their  sins,  past  and 
future,  should  be  pardoned  and  done  away. 

Not  for  the  living  only,  but  also  for  the 
dead,   he  proposed   full   and    instantaneous  de- 


TETZEL'S  PERFORMANCES.  55 

liverance  from  all  future  punishments  on  the 
payment  of  the  price.  And  any  wretch  who 
dared  to  doubt  or  question  the  saving  power 
of  these  certificates  he  in  advance  doomed  to 
excommunication  and  the  wrath  of  God.* 

*Many  of  the  sayings  which  Tetzel  gave  out  in  his  addresses  to 
the  people  have  been  preserved,  and  are  amply  attested  by  those 
who  listened  to  his  harangues. 

"I  would  not,'"'  said  he,  " exchange  my  privileges  for  those  of 
St.  Peter  in  heaven.  He  saved  many  by  his  sermons  ;  I  have 
saved  more  by  my  indulgences." 

"  Indulgences  are  the  most  precious  and  sublime  of  all  the  gifts 
of  God." 

"  No  sins  are  so  great  that  these  pardons  cannot  cover  them." 

"  Not  for  the  living  only,  but  for  the  dead  also,  there  is  imme- 
diate salvation  in  these  indulgences." 

"  Ye  priests,  nobles,  tradespeople,  wives,  maidens,  yonng  men ! 
the  souls  of  your  parents  and  beloved  ones  are  crying  from  the 
depths  below:  'See  our  torments!  A  small  alms  would  deliver 
us;  and  you  can  give  it,   and  you  will  not'" 

"  ()  dull  and  brutish  people,  not  to  appreciate  the  grace  so 
richly  offered!  This  day  heaven  is  open  on  all  sides,  and  how 
many  are  the  souls  you  might  redeem  if  you  only  would  !  Your 
father  is  in  flames,  and  you  can  deliver  him  for  ten  groschen,  and 
you  do  it  not  t  What  punishment  must  come  for  neglecting  so 
great  salvation  !  You  should  strip  your  coat  from  your  back,  if 
you  have  no  other,  and  sell  it  to  purchase  so  great  grace  as  this, 
for  God  hath  given  all  power  to  the  pope." 

"The  bodies  of  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  with  those  of  many 
blessed  martyrs,  lie  exposed,  trampled  on,  polluted,  dishonored, 
and  rotting  in  the  weather.  Our  most  holy  lord  the  pope  means 
to  build  the  church  to  cover  them  with  glory  that  shall  have 
no  equal  on  the  earth.  Shall  those  holy  ashes  be  left  to  be  trodden 
in  the  mire? 

"Therefore  bring  your  money,  and  do  a  work  most  profitable  to 
departed  souls.     Buy  !  buy  !" 


56  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

Catholic  divines  have  labored  hard  to  white- 
wash or  explain  away  this  stupendous  iniquity; 
but,  with  all  they  have  said  or  may  say,  such 
were  the  presentations  made  by  the  hawkers 
of  these  wares  and  such  was  the  text  of  the 
diplomas  they  issued. 

A    dispensation   or  indulgence  was  nothing 

"  This  red  cross  with  the  pope's  arras  lias  equal  virtue  with 
the  Cross  of  Christ." 

"These  pardons  make  clenner  than  baptism,  and  purer  than 
Adam  was  in  his  innocence  in  Paradise." 

In  the  certificates  which  Tetzel  gave  to  those  who  bought 
these  pardons  he  declared  that  "by  the  authority  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  of  his  apostles  Peter  and  Paul,  and  of  the  most 
holy  pope,  I  do  absolve  thee  first  from  all  ecclesiastical  censures, 
in  whatever  manner  they  have  been  incurred,  and  then  from  all  thy 
sins,  transgressions,  and  excesses,  however  enormous  soever  they  may  be. 
I  remit  to  you  all  punishment  which  you  deserve  in  Purgatory  on 
their  account,  and  I  restore  you  to  the  holy  sacraments  of  the 
Church,  union  with  the  faithful,  and  to  that  innocence  and  purity 
possessed  at  baptism;  so  that  when  you  die  the  gates  of  punishment 
shall  be  shut  and  the  gates  of  the  happy  Paradise  shall  be  opened;  and 
if  your  death  shall  be  delayed,  this  grace  shall  remain  in  full  force  when 
you  are  at  the  point  of  death." 

The  sums  required  for  these  passports  to  glory  varied  according 
to  the  rank  and  wealth  of  the  applicant.  For  ordinary  indulgence 
a  king,  queen,  or  bishop  was  to  pay  twenty-five  ducats  (a  ducat 
being  about  a  dollar  of  our  money) ;  abbots,  counts,  barons,  and  the 
like  were  charged  ten  ducats;  other  nobles  and  all  who  enjoyed 
annual  incomes  of  five  hundred  florins  were  charged  six  dacats  ; 
and  so  down  to  half  a  florin,  or  twenty-five  cents. 

But  the  commissioner  also  had  a  special  scale  for  taxes  on 
particular  sins.  Sodomy  was  charged  twelve  ducats;  Bacrilege 
and  perjury,  nine;  murder,  seven  or  eight;  witchcraft  and  polyg- 
amy, from  two  to  six  ;  taking  the  life  of  a  parent,  brother,  sister, 
or  an  infant,  from  one  to  six. 


LUTHER   ON  INDULGENCES.  57 

more  nor  less  than  a  pretended  letter  of  credit 
on  Heaven,  drawn  at  will  by  the  pope  out  of 
the  superabundant  merits  of  Christ  and  all 
saints,  to  count  so  much  on  the  books  of  God 
for  so  many  murders,  robberies,  frauds,  lies, 
slanders,  or  debaucheries.  As  the  matter 
practically  worked,  a  more  profane  and  devilish 
traffic  never  had  place  in  our  world  than  that 
which  the  Roman  hierarchy  thus  carried  on  in 
the  name  of  the  Triune  God. 

Luther  on  Indulgences. 

Luther  was  on  a  tour  of  inspection  as  dis- 
trict vicar  of  the  Augustinians  when  he  first 
heard  of  these  shameful  doings.  As  yet  he 
understood  but  little  of  the  system,  and  could 
not  believe  it  possible  that  the  fathers  at  Rome 
could  countenance,  much  less  appoint  and 
commission,  such  iniquities.  Boiling  with  in- 
dignation for  the  honor  of  the  Church,  he 
threatened  to  make  a  hole  in  Tetzel's  drum, 
and  wrote  to  the  authorities  to  refuse  pass- 
ports to  the  hucksters  of  these  shameful  de- 
ceptions. 

But  Tetzel  soon  came  near  to  Wittenberg. 
Some  of  Luther's  parishioners  heard  him,  and 
bought  absolutions.  They  afterward  came  to 
confession,  acknowledging  great   irregularities 


58  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

of  life.  Luther  rebuked  their  wickedness, 
and  would  not  promise  them  forgiveness  un- 
less contrite  for  their  sins  and  earnestly  en- 
deavoring to  amend  their  evil  ways.  They  re- 
monstrated, and  brought  out  their  certificates  of 
plenary  pardon.  "  I  have  nothing  to  do  with 
your  papers,"  said  he.  "  God's  Word  says  you 
must  repent  and  lead  better  lives,  or  you  will 
perish." 

His  words  were  at  once  carried  to  the  ears 
of  Tetzel,  who  fumed  with  rage  at  such  im- 
pudence toward  the  authority  of  the  Church. 
He  ascended  the  pulpit  and  hurled  the  curses 
of  God  upon  the  Saxon  monk. 

Thus  an  honest  pastor  finds  some  of  his 
'flock  on  the  way  to  ruin,  and  tries  to  guide 
them  right.  He  is  not  thinking  of  attacking 
Home.  He  is  ready  to  fight  and  die  for  holy 
Mother  Church.  His  very  protests  are  in  her 
behalf.  He  is  on  his  own  rightful  field,  in 
faithful  pursuit  of  his  own  rightful  duty. 
Here  the  erring  hierarchy  seeks  him  out  and 
attacks  him.  Shall  he  yield  to  timid  fears 
and  weak  advisers,  keep  silence  in  his  own 
house,  and  let  the  soula  lie  is  placed  to  guard 
become  a  prey  to  the  destroyer?  Is  he  not 
sworn   to  defend   God's  holy   Word  and  Gos- 


SERMON  ON  INDULGENCES.  59 

pel?     What  will  be  his  eternal  fate  and  that 
of  his  people  should  he  now  hold  his  peace  ? 

Sermon  on  Indulgences. 

Without  conferring  with  flesh  and  blood  his 
resolve  was  made — a  resolve  on  which  hung 
all  the  better  future  of  the  world — a  resolve 
to  take  the  pulpit  against  the  lying  indulg- 
ences. 

For  several  days  he  shut  himself  in  his  cell 
to  make  sure  of  his  ground  and  to  elaborate 
what  he  would  say.  With  eminent  modesty 
and  moderation  his  sentences  were  wrought, 
but  with  a  perspicuity  and  clearness  which  no 
one  could  mistake.  A  crowded  church  awaited 
their  delivery.  He  entered  with  his  brother- 
monks,  and  joined  in  all  the  service  with  his 
usual  voice  and  gravity.  Nothing  in  his 
countenance  or  manner  betrayed  the  slightest 
agitation  of  his  soul.  It  was  a  solemn  and 
momentous  step  for  himself  and  for  mankind 
that  he  was  about  to  take,  but  he  was  as 
calmly  made  up  to  it  as  to  any  other  duty 
of  his  life.  The  moment  came  for  him  to 
speak ;  and  he  spoke. 

"  I  hold  it  impossible,"  said  he,  "  to  prove 
from  the  Holy  Scriptures  that  divine  justice 
demands  from  the   sinner  any  other  penance 


60  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION, 

or  satisfaction  than  a  true  repentance,  a 
change  of  heart,  a  willing  submission  to  bear 
the  Saviour's  cross,  and  a  readiness  to  do  what 
good  he  can. 

"That  indulgences  applied  to  souls  in 
Purgatory  serve  to  remit  the  punishments 
which  they  would  otherwise  suffer  is  an 
opinion  devoid  of  any  foundation. 

"  Indulgences,  so  far  from  expiating  or 
cleansing  from  sin,  leave  the  man  in  the 
same  filth  and  condemnation  in  which  they 
find  him. 

"  The  Church  exacts  somewhat  of  the  sin- 
ner, and  what  it  on  its  own  account  exacts  it 
can  on  its  own  account  remit,  but  nothing 
more. 

"  If  you  have  aught  to  spare,  in  God's  name 
give  it  for  the  building  of  St.  Peter's,  but  do 
not  buy  pardons. 

"  If  you  have  means,  feed  the  hungry, 
which  is  of  more  avail  than  piling  stones 
together,  and  far  better  than  the  buying  of 
indulgences. 

"My  advice  is,  Let  indulgences  alone;  leave 
them  to  dead  and  sleepy  Christians  ;  but  see 
to  it  that  ye  be  not  of  that  kind. 

"  Indulgences  are  neither  commanded  nor 
approved    of    God.     They    excite    no   one   to 


SERMON  ON  INDULGENCES.  61 

sa  notification.      They    work    nothing    toward 
salvation. 

"  That  indulgences  have  virtue  to  deliver 
souls  from  Purgatory  I  do  not  believe,  nor 
can  it  be  proven  by  them  that  teach  it;  the 
Church  says  nothing  to  that  effect. 

"  What  I  preach  to  you  is  based  on  the 
certainty  of  the  Holy  Scriptures,  which  no 
one  ought  to  doubt." 

So  Luther  preached,  and  his  word  went  out 
to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  It  was  no  jest,  like 
Ulric  von  Hiitten's  Epistles  of  Obscure  Men, 
or  like  the  ridicule  which  Reuchlin  and  Eras- 
mus heaped  upon  the  stupid  monks.  It  raised 
no  laugh,  but  penetrated,  like  a  rifle-shot,  into 
the  very  heart  of  things. 

Those  who  listened  were  deeply  affected  by 
the  serious  boldness  of  the  preacher.  The 
audience  was  with  him  in  conviction,  but  many 
trembled  for  the  result.  "  Dear  doctor,  you 
have  been  very  rash ;  what  trouble  may  come 
of  this !"  said  a  venerable  father  as  he  pulled 
the  sleeve  of  Luther's  gown  and  shook  his 
head  with  misgivings.  "  If  this  is  not  rightly  I 
done  in  God's  name,"  said  Luther,  "it  will 
come  to  nothing ;  if  it  is,  let  come  what  will." 

It  was  honest  duty  to  God,  truth,  and  the 
salvation  of  men  that  moved  him.     Cowardly 


62  LUTHER    AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

policy  or  timid  expediency  in  such  a  matter 
was  totally  foreign   to  his  soul. 

In  a  few  days  the  substance  of  the  sermon 
was  in  print.  Tetzel  raved  over  it.  Me- 
lanchthon  says  he  burnt  it  in  the  market-place 
of  Juterbock.  In  the  name  of  God  and  the 
pope  he  bade  defiance  to  its  author,  and  chal- 
lenged him  by  fire  and  wTater.  Luther  laughed 
at  him  for  braying  so  loud  at  a  distance,  yet 
declining  to  come  to  Wittenberg  to  argue  out 
the  matter  in  close  lists. 

Appeal  to  the  Bishops. 

Anxious  to  vindicate  the  Church  from  what 
he  believed  to  be  an  unwarranted  liberty  in 
the  use  of  her  name,  Luther  wrote  to  the 
bishop  of  Brandenburg  and  the  archbishop 
of  Mayence.  He  made  his  points,  and  ap- 
pealed to  these  his  superiors  to  put  down  the 
scandalous  falsities  advanced  by  Tetzel.  They 
failed  to  answer  in  any  decisive  way.  The 
one  timidly  advised  silence,  and  the  other 
had  too  much  pecuniary  interest  in  the  busi- 
ness to  notice  the  letter. 

Thus,  as  a  pastor,  Luther  had  taken  his 
ground  before  his  parishioners  in  the  confes- 
sional. As  a  preacher  he  had  uttered  himself 
in    earnest   admonition  from  the  pulpit.     As 


THE  NINETY-FIVE  THESES.  63 

a  loyal  son  he  had  made  his  presentation  and 
appeal  to  those  in  authority  over  him.  Was 
he  right?  or  was  he  wrong?  No  command- 
ing answer  came,  and  there  remained  one 
other  way  of  testing  the  question.  As  a  doc- 
tor of  divinity  he  could  lawfully,  as  custom 
had  been,  demand  an  open  and  fair  discussion 
of  the  matter  with  teachers  and  theologians. 
And  upon  this  he  now  resolved. 

The  Ninety-five  Theses. 
He  framed  a  list  of  propositions  on  the 
points  in  question.  They  were  in  Latin,  for 
his  appeal  was  to  theologians,  and  not  yet  to 
the  common  heart  and  mind  of  Germany.  To 
make  them  public,  he  took  advantage  of  a 
great  festival  at  Wittenberg,  when  the  town 
was  full  of  visitors  and  strangers,  and  nailed 
them  to  the  door  of  the  new  castle  church, 
October  31,  1517. 

These  wej^Jhe  famous  Ninety -five  Theses, 
They  were  plainly-worded  statements  of  the 
same  points  he  had  made  in  the  confessional 
and  in  his  sermon.  They  contained  no  assault 
upon  the  Church,  no  arraignment  of  the  pope, 
no  personal  attack  on  any  one.  Neither  were 
they  given  as  necessarily  true,  but  as  what 
^Luther  believed  to  be  true^and  the  real  truth 


64  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

or  falsity  of  which  he  desired  to  have  decided 
in  the  only  way  questions  of  faith  and  salvation 
can  be  rightly  decided. 

The  whole  matter  was  fairly,  humbly,  and 
legitimately  put.  "  I,  Martin  Luther,  Augus- 
tinian  at  Wittenberg,"  he  added  at  the  end, 
"  hereby  declare  that  I  have  written  these 
propositions  against  indulgences.  I  understand 
that  some,  not  knowing  what  they  affirm,  are 
of  opinion  that  I  am  a  heretic,  though  our 
renowned  university  has  not  condemned  me, 
nor  any  temporal  or  spiritual  authority.  There- 
fore, now  again,  as  often  heretofore,  I  beg  of  one 
and  all,  for  the  sake  of  the  true  Christian  faith, 
to  show  me  the  better  way,  if  peradventure 
they  have  learned  it  from  above,  or  at  least  to 
submit  their  opinion  to  the  decision  of  God  and 
the  Church;  for  I  am  not  so  insane  as  to  set  up 
my  views  above  everything  and  everybody, 
nor  so  silly  as  to  accept  the  fables  invented 
by  men  in  preference  to  the  Word  of  God." 

It  is  from  the  nailing  up  of  these  Theses  that 
the  history  of  the  Great  Reformation  dates ; 
for  the  hammer-strokes  which  fixed  that 
parchment  started  the  Alpine  avalanche  which 
overwhelmed  the  pride  of  Rome  and  broke 
the  stubborn  power  which  had  reigned  supreme 
for  a  thousand  years. 


effect  of  the  theses.  65 

Effect  of  the  Theses. 

As  no  one  came  forward  to  discuss  his 
Theses,  Luther  resolved  to  publish  them  to 
the  world. 

In  fourteen  days  they  overspread  Germany. 
In  a  month  they  ran  through  all  Christen- 
dom. One  historian  says  it  seemed  as  if  the 
angels  of  God  were  engaged  in  spreading 
them. 

At  a  single  stroke,  made  in  modesty  and 
faith,  Luther  had  become  the  most  noted  per- 
son in  Germany — the  man  most  talked  of  in 
all  the  world — the  mouthpiece  of  the  best 
people  in  Christendom — the  leader  of  a  mighty 
revolution. 

Reuchlin  read,  and  thanked  God. 

Erasmus  read,  and  rejoiced,  only  counseling 
moderation  and  prudence. 

The  Emperor  Maximilian  read,  and  wrote 
to  the  Saxon  Elector:  "Take  care  of  the 
monk  Luther,  for  the  time  may  come  when 
we  will  need  him." 

The  bishop  of  Wurzburg  read,  and  was 
filled  with  gladness,  and  wrote  to  the  Elector 
Frederick  to  hold  on  to  Luther  as  a  preacher 
of  the  truth  of  God. 

The   prior  of  Steinlausitz  read,  and    could 


66  LUTHER  AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

not  suppress  his  joy.  "  See  here,"  said  he  to 
his  monks:  "the  long-waited -for  has  come;  he 
tells  the  truth.  Berg  means  mountain,  and 
Wittenberg  is  the  mountain  whither  all  the 
world  will  come  to  seek  wisdom,  and  will  find 
it." 

A  student  of  Annaberg  read,  and  said, 
"This  Luther  is  the  reaper  in  my  dream, 
whom  the  voice  bade  me  follow  and  gather 
in  the  bread  of  life ;"  and  from  that  hour 
he  was  a  fast  friend  of  Luther  and  his  cause, 
and  became  the  distinguished  Myconius. 

The  pope  himself  read  the  Theses,  and  did 
not  think  unfavorably  of  their  author.  He 
saw  in  Luther  a  man  of  learning  and  brilliant 
genius,  and  that  pleased  him.  The  questions 
mooted  he  referred  to  a  mere  monkish  jealousy 
— an  unsober  gust  of  passion  which  would  soon 
blow  over.  He  did  not  then  realize  the 
seriousness  which  was  in  the  matter.  His 
sphere  was  heathen  art  and  worldly  magnif- 
icence, not  searching  into  the  ways  of  Gi >(Ts 
salvation. 

The  great  German  heart  was  moved,  and 
the  brave  daring  of  hi  in  whose  voice  was 
thus  lifted  up  against  the  abominations  which 
were  draining  the  country  to  fill  the  pope's 
coffers    was    hailed    with    enthusiasm.       Had 


EFFECT  OF  THE  THESES.  67 

Luther  been  a  smaller  man  lie  would  have 
been  swept  away  by  his  vast  and  sudden 
fame. 

But  not  all  was  sunshine.  Erasmus  wittily 
said,  Luther  committed  two  unpardonable 
sins :  he  touched  the  pope's  crown  and  the 
monks'  bellies.  Such  effrontery  would  needs 
raise  a  mighty  outcry. 

Prierias,  the  master  of  the  sacred  palace, 
pronounced  Luther  a  heretic.  Hochstrat  of 
Cologne,  Reuchlin's  enemy,  clamored  for  fire 
to  burn  him.  The  indulgence- venders  thun- 
dered their  anathemas,  promising  a  speedy  holo- 
caust of  Luther's  body.  The  monasteries  took 
on  the  form  of  so  many  kennels  of  enraged 
hounds  howling  to  each  other  across  the  spir- 
itual waste.  And  even  some  who  pronounced 
the  Theses  scriptural  and  orthodox  shook  their 
heads  and  sought  to  quash  such  dangerous 
proceedings. 

But  Luther  remained  firm  at  his  post.  He 
honestly  believed  what  he  had  written,  and 
he  was  not  afraid  of  the  truth.  If  the  powers 
of  the  world  should  come  down  upon  him 
and  kill  him,  he  was  prepared  for  the  slaugh- 
ter. In  all  the  mighty  controversy  he  was 
ever  ready  to  serve  the  Gospel  with  his  life 
or  with  his  death. 


68        luther  and  the  reformation. 

Tetzel's  End. 
Tetzel  continued  to  bray  and  fume  against 
him  from  pulpit  and  press,  denouncing  him  as 
a  heresiarch,  heretic,  and  schismatic.  By 
Wimpina's  aid  he  issued  a  reply  to  Luther's 
sermon,  and  also  counter-theses  on  Luther's 
propositions.  But  the  tide  was  turning  in  the 
sea  of  human  thinking.  Luther's  utterances 
had  turned  it.  The  people  were  ready  to  tear 
the  mountebank  to  j>ieces.  Two  years  later  he 
imploringly  complained  to  the  jiope's  nuncio, 
Miltitz,  that  such  fury  pursued  him  in  Germany, 
Bohemia,  Hungary,  and  Poland  that  he  was 
nowhere  safe.  Even  the  representative  of  the 
pope  gave  the  wretch  no  sympathy.  When 
Luther  heard  of  his  illness  he  sent  him  a 
letter  to  tell  him  that  he  had  forgiven  him  all. 
He  died  in  Leipsic,  neglected,  smitten  in  soul, 
and  full  of  misery,  July  14,  1519. 

Luther's  Growing  Influence. 
Six  months  after  the  nailing  up  of  the 
Theses,  Luther  was  the  hero  of  a  general 
convention  of  the  Augustinians  in  Heidelberg, 
lie  there  submitted  a  scries  of  propositions  on 
philosophy  and  theology,  which  lie  defended 
with  such  convincing  clearness  and  tact  that 


HIS  APPEAL    TO   THE  POPE.  69 

he  won  for  himself  and  his  university  great 
honor  and  renown.  Better  still,  four  learned 
young  men  who  there  heard  him  saw  the  truth 
of  his  positions,  and  afterward  became  dis- 
tinguished defenders  of  the  Reformation. 

His  cause,  meanwhile,  was  rapidly  gain- 
ing friends.  His  replies  to  Tetzel,  Prierias, 
Hochstrat,  and  Eck  had  gone  forth  to  deepen 
the  favorable  impression  made  by  the  Ninety- 
five  Theses.  Truth  had  once  more  lifted  up 
its  head  in  Europe,  and  Rome  would  find  it  no 
child's  play  to  put  it  down.  The  skirmish- 
lines  of  the  hierarchy  had  been  met  and  driven 
in.     The  tug  of  serious  battle  was  now  to  come. 

His  Appeal  to  the  Pope. 
Luther  made  the  advance.  He  wrote  out 
explanations  (or  "Resolutions  ")  of  his  Theses, 
and  sent  them,  with  a  letter,  to  the  pope. 
With  great  confidence,  point,  and  elegance,  but 
with  equal  submissiveness  and  humility,  he 
spoke  of  the  completeness  of  Christ  for  the 
salvation  of  every  true  believer,  without  room 
or  need  for  penances  and  other  satisfactions; 
of  the  evilness  of  the  times,  and  the  pressing 
necessity  for  a  general  reform ;  of  the  damaging 
complaints  everywhere  resounding  against  the 
traffic    in    indulgences;    of   his    unsuccessful 


70  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

appeals  to  the  ecclesiastical  princes ;  and  of 
the  unjust  censures  being  heaped  upon  him  for 
what  he  had  done,  entreating  His  Holiness  to 
instruct  his  humble  petitioner,  and  condemn  or 
approve,  kill  or  preserve,  as  the  voice  of  Christ 
through  him  might  be. '  He  then  believed  that 
God's  sanction  had  to  come  through  the  high 
clergy  and  heads  of  the  Church.  Many  good 
Christians  had  approved  his  Theses,  but  he  did 
not  recognize  in  that  the  divine  answer  to 
his  testimony.  He  said  afterward  :  "  I  looked 
only  to  the  pope,  the  cardinals,  the  bishops, 
the  theologians,  the  jurisconsults,  the  monks, 
the  priests,  from  whom  I  expected  the  breath- 
ing of  the  Spirit."  He  had  not  yet  learned 
what  a  bloody  dragon  claimed  to  impersonate 
the  Lamb  of  God. 

Citation  to  Answ-er  for  Heresy. 

While,  in  open  frankness,  Luther  was  thus 
meekly  committing  himself  to  the  powers  at 
Rome,  they  were  meditating  his  destruction. 
Insidiously  they  sought  to  deprive  him  of  the 
Elector's  protection,  and  answered  Ins  humble 
and  confiding  appeal  with  a  citation  to  appear 
before  them  to  answer  for  heresy. 

Things  now  were  ominous  of  evil.  Witten- 
berg was  fdled  with  consternation.     If  Luther 


LUTHER  BEFORE  OAJETAK  71 

obeyed,  it  was  evident  he  would  perish  like  so 
many  faithful  men  before  him  ;  if  he  refused, 
he  would  be  charged  with  contumacy  and 
involve  his  prince.  One  and  another  expedi- 
ent were  proposed  to  meet  the  perplexity  ;  but 
to  secure  a  hearing  in  Germany  was  all  Luther 
asked. 

To  this  the  pope  proved  more  willing  than 
was  thought.  He  was  not  sure  of  gaining  by 
the  public  trial  and  execution  of  a  man  so 
deeply  planted  in  the  esteem  of  his  country- 
men, and  by  bringing  him  before  a  prudent 
legate  he  might  induce  him  to  retract  and  the 
trouble  be  ended ;  if  not,  it  would  be  a  less 
disturbing  way  of  getting  possession  of  the 
accused  man.  Orders  were  therefore  issued 
for  Luther  to  appear  before  Cardinal  Cajetan 
at  Augsburg. 

Luther  before  Cajetan. 
On  foot  he  undertook  the  journey,  believed 
by  all  to  be  a  journey  to  his  death.  But  Max- 
imilian, then  in  the  neighborhood  of  Augs- 
burg, gave  him  a  safe-conduct,  and  Cajetan 
was  obliged  to  receive  him  with  civility.  He 
even  embraced  him  with  tokens  of  affection, 
thinking  to  win  him  to  retraction.  Luther 
was  much  softened  by  these  kindly  manifesta- 


72  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

tions,  and  was  disposed  to  comply  with  almost 
anything  if  not  required  to  deny  the  truth 
of  God. 

The  interviews  were  numerous.  Luther 
was  told  that  it  was  useless  to  think  that 
the  civil  powers  would  go  to  war  for  his  pro- 
tection ;  and  where  would  he  then  be  ?  His 
answer  was :  "I  will  be,  as  now,  under  the 
broad  heavens  of  the  Almighty."  Remon- 
strances, entreaties,  threatenings,  and  proposals 
o*f  high  distinction  were  addressed  to  him ; 
but  he  wanted  no  cardinal's  hat,  and  for  noth- 
ing in  Home's  power  would  he  consent  to 
retract  what  he  believed  to  be  the  Gospel 
truth  till  shown  wherein  it  was  at  variance 
with  the  divine  Word.  Cajetan's  arguments 
tripped  and  failed  at  every  point,  and  he 
could  only  reiterate  that  he  had  been  sent 
to  receive  a  retraction,  not  to  debate  the 
questions.  Luther  as  often  promised  this 
when  shown  from  the  Scriptures  to  be  in 
the  wrong,  but  not  till  then. 

Cajetan's  Mortification. 

Foiled  and  disappointed  in  his  designs, 
and  astounded  and  impatient  that  a  poor 
monk  should  thus  set  at  naught  all  the 
prayers    and     powers    of    the    sovereign    of 


CAJETAN'S  MORTIFICATION.  73 

Christendom,  the  cardinal  bade  him  see  his 
face  no  more  until  he  had  repented  of  his 
stubbornness. 

At  this  the  friends  of  the  Reformer,  fear- 
ing for  his  safety,  clandestinely  hurried  him 
out  of  Augsburg,  literally  grappling  him  up 
from  his  bed  only  half  dressed,  and  brought 
him  away  to  his  university.  He  had  answered 
the  pope's  summons,  and  yet  was  free ! 

Cajetan  was  mortified  at  the  result,  and 
was  upbraided  for  his  failure.  In  his  chagrin 
he  wrote  angrily  to  the  Elector  not  to  soil 
his  name  and  lineage  by  sheltering  a  heretic, 
but  to  surrender  Luther  at  once,  on  j^ain  of 
an  interdict.  The  Elector  was  troubled. 
Luther  had  not  been  proven  a  heretic,  neither 
did  he  believe  him  to  be  one ;  but  he  feared 
collision  with  the  pope. 

Luther  said  if  he  were  in  the  Elector's 
place  he  would  answer  the  cardinal  as  he 
deserved  for  thus  insulting  an  honest  man ; 
but,  not  to  be  an  embarrassment  to  his  prince, 
he  agreed  to  leave  the  Elector's  dominions  if 
he  said  so.  But  Frederick  would  not  sur- 
render his  distinguished  subject  to  the  legate, 
neither  would  he  send  him  out  of  the  country. 
It  is  hard  to  say  which  was  here  the  nobler 
man,  Luther  or  his  illustrious  protector. 


74        luther  and  the  reformation. 

Progress  of  Events. 

The  minds  of  men  by  this  time  were  much 
aroused,  and  Luther's  cause  grew  and  strength- 
ened. The  learned  Melanchthon,  ReuchlinV: 
relative  and  pupil,  was  added  to  the  faculty  at 
Wittenberg,  and  became  Luther's  chief  co-la- 
borer. The  number  of  students  in  the  uni- 
versity swelled  to  thousands,  including  the 
sons  of  noblemen  and  princes  from  all  parts, 
wlio  listened  with  admiration  to  Luther's  lec- 
tures and  sermons  and  spread  his  fame  and 
doctrines.  And  the  feeling  was  deep  and 
general  that  a  new  and  marvelous  light  had 
arisen  upon  the  world.* 

It  was  now  that  Maximilian  died  (Jan.  17, 
1519),  and  Charles  V.,  his  grandson,  a  Span- 
ish prince  of  nineteen  years,  succeeded  to  his 
place.  The  Imperial  crown  was  laid  at  the 
feet  of  the  Elector  Frederick,  Luther's  friend, 
but  he  declined  it  in  favor  of  Charles,  only 
exacting  a  solemn  pledge  that  he  would   not 

*A  writer  of  the  Roman  Church,  in  a  vein  of  somewhat   min- 
gled   sarcasm   and   seriousness,  remarks:     '"The  university  had 

reason  to  he  proud  of  Luther,  whose  oral  lectures  attracted  a  mul- 
titude of  strangers;  these  pilgrims  from  distant  quarters  joined 
their  hands  and  bowed  their  heads  at  the  sight  of  the  towers  of 
the  city,  like  other  travelers  i etore  Jerusalem.  Wittenberg  WSB 
like  a  new  Zion,  whence  the  light  of  truth  expanded  to  neighbor- 
ing  kingdoms,   as  of  old   from   the   Holy  City  to  pagan   nations.'' 


THE  LEIPSTC  DISPUTATION.  75 

disturb  the  liberties  of  Germany.  Civil  free- 
dom is  one  of  the  glorious  fruits  of  the  Ref- 
ormation, and  here  already  it  began  to  raise 
barricades  against  despotic  power. 

The  Leipsic  Disputation. 

Up  to  this  time,  however,  there  had  been  no 
questioning  of  the  divine  rights  claimed  by 
the  hierarchy.  Luther  was  still  a  Papist, 
and  thought  to  grow  his  plants  of  evangelic 
faith  under  the  shadow  of  the  Upas  of  eccle- 
siasticism.  He  had  not  yet  been  brought  to 
see  how  his  Augustinian  theology  concerning 
sin  and  grace  ran  afoul  of  the  entire  round  of 
the  mediaeval  system  and  methods  of  holiness. 
It  was  only  the  famous  Leipsic  Disputation 
between  him  and  Dr.  John  Eck  that  showed 
him  the  remoter  and  deeper  relations  of  his 
position  touching  indulgences. 

This  otherwise  fruitless  debate  had  the  effect 
of  making  the  nature  and  bearings  of  the  con- 
troversy clear  to  both  sides.  Eck  now  dis- 
tinctly saw  that  Luther  must  be  forcibly  put 
down  or  the  whole  papal  system  must  fall ; 
and  Luther  was  made  to  realize  that  he  must 
surrender  his  doctrine  of  salvation  through 
simple  faith  in  Christ  or  break  with  the  pope 
and  the  hierarchical  system. 


76  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

Accepting  the  pontifical  doctrines  as  true, 
Eck  claimed  the  victory,  because  he  had 
driven  Luther  to  expressions  at  variance  with 
those  doctrines.  On  the  other  hand,  Luther 
had  shown  that  the  pontifical  claims  were 
without  foundation  in  primitive  Christian- 
ity or  the  Holy  Scriptures ;  that  the  Papacy 
was  not  of  divine  authority  or  of  the  essence 
of  the  Church ;  that  the  Church  existed 
before  and  beyond  the  papal  hierarchy,  as 
well  as  under  it;  that  the  only  Head  of  the 
universal  Christian  Church  is  Christ  himself; 
that  wherever  there  is  true  faith  in  God's 
Word,  there  the  Church  is,  whatever  the 
form  of  external  organization ;  that  the  popes 
could  err  and  had  erred,  and  councils  like- 
wise; and  that  neither  separately  nor  together 
could  they  rightfully  decree  or  ordain  contrary 
to  the  Scriptures,  the  only  infallible  Rule. 

To  all  this  Eck  could  make  no  answer  ex- 
cept that  it  was  Hussism  over  again,  which 
the  Council  of  Constance  had  condemned,  and 
that,  from  the  standpoint  of  the  hierarchy,  Lu- 
ther was  a  heretic  and  ought  to  be  dealt  with 
accordingly. 

Results  fbom  the  Debate. 

Luther    now  realized    that  the  true  Gospel 


RESULTS  FROM  THE  DEBATE.  77 

of  God's  salvation  and  the  pontifical  system  \ 
were  vitally  and  irreconcilably  antagonistic;/ 
that  the  one  could  never  be  held  in  consisten- 
cy with  the  other ;  and  that  there  must  come 
a  final  break  between  him  and  Home.  This 
much  depressed  him.  He  showed  his  spiritual 
anguish  by  his  deep  dejection.  But  he  soon 
rose  above  it.  If  he  had  the  truth  of  God, 
as  he  verily  believed,  what  were  the  pope  and 
all  devils  against  Jehovah  ?  And  so  he  went 
on  lecturing,  preaching,  writing,  and  publish- 
ing with  his  greatest  power,  brilliancy,  and 
effectiveness. 

Some  of  the  best  and  most  telling  products 
of  his  pen  now  went  forth  to  multitudes  of 
eager  readers.  The  glowing  energy  of  his 
faith  acted  like  a  spreading  fire,  kindling  the 
souls  of  men  as  they  seldom  have  been  kindled 
in  any  cause  in  any  age.  His  Address  to  the 
Nobility  electrified  all  Germany,  and  first 
fired  the  patriotic  spirit  of  Ulrich  Zwingli, 
the  Swiss  Reformer.  His  book  on  The  Bab- 
ylonian Captivity  of  the  Church  sounded  a 
bugle-note  which  thrilled  through  all  the 
German  heart,  gave  Bugenhagen  to  the  Refor- 
mation, and  sent  a  shudder  through  the  hier- 
archy.*     Already,    at   Maximilian's    Diet   at 

*  Glapio,   the  confessor  of  Charles   V.,   stated  to   Chancellor 


78  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

Augsburg  to  take  measures  against  the  Turk,  a 
Latin  pamphlet  was  openly  circulated  among 
the  members  which  said  that  the  Turk  to  be 
resisted  was  living  in  Italy;  and  Mil  tit/. 
the  pope's  nuncio  and  chamberlain,  confessed 
that  from  Home  to  Altenberg  he  had  found 
those  greatly  in  the  minority  who  did  not  side 
with  Luther. 

Luther's  Excommunication. 
.  But  the  tempest  waxed  fiercer  and  louder 
every  day.  Luther's  growing  influence  the 
more  inflamed  his  enemies.  Hochstrat  had 
induced  two  universities  to  condemn  his  doc- 
trines. In  sundry  places  his  books  were 
burned  by  the  public  hangman.  Eck  had 
gone  to  Italy,  and  was  "  moving  the  depths 
of  hell "  to  secure  the  excommunication  of 
the  prejudged  heretic.  And  could  his  blood- 
thirsty enemies  have  had  their  way,  this 
would  long  since  have  come.  iBut  Leo  seems 
to  have  had  more  respect  for  Luther  than  for 
them.  Learning  and  talent  were  more  to 
him  than  any  doctrines  of  the  faith. \  The 
monks  complained  of  him  as  too  much  given 

Briick  at  the  Die!  of  Worms:  "The  alarm  which  I  fell  when  I 
read  the  first  paged  of  the  Captivity  cannot  be  expressed;  they 
might  be  said   to   be   lashes  which  Bcourged   me  from   head   to 

foot." 


LUTHER'S  EXCOMMUNICATION.  79 

to  luxury  and  pleasure  to  do  his  duty  in 
defending  the  Church.  Perhaps  he  had  con- 
science enough  to  be  ashamed  to  enforce  his 
traffic  in  paper  pardons  by  destroying  the 
most  honest  and  heroic  man  in  Germany. 
Perhaps  he  did  not  like  to  stain  his  reign 
with  so  foul  a  record,  even  if  dangerous  com- 
plications should  not  attend  it.  Whatever  the 
cause,  he  was  slow  to  respond  to  these  clamors 
for  blood.  Eck  had  almost  as  much  trouble 
to  get  him  to  issue  the  Bull  of  Luther's  ex- 
communication as  he  had  to  answer  Luther's 
arguments  in  the  Leipsic  Discussion.  But 
he  eventually  procured  it,  and  undertook  to 
enforce  it. 

And  yet,  with  all  his  zealous  personal  en- 
deavors and  high  authority,  he  could  hardly 
get  it  posted,  promulged,  or  at  all  respected  in 
Germany.  His  parchment  thunder  lost  its 
power  in  coming  across  the  Alps.  Miltitz 
also  was  in  his  way,  who,  with  equal  authority 
from  the  pope,  was  endeavoring  to  supersede 
the  Bull  by  attempts  at  reconciliation.  It 
came  to  Wittenberg  in  such  a  sorry  plight 
that  Luther  laughed  at  it  as  having  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  forgery  by  Dr.  Eck.  He  knew 
the  pope  had  been  bullied  into  the  issuing  of 
it,  but  this  was  the  biting  irony  by  which  he 


80  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

indicated  the  character  of  the  men  by  whom 
it  was  moved  and  the  pitiable  weakness  to 
which  such  thunders  had  been  reduced. 

But  it  was  a  Bull  of  excommunication 
nevertheless.  Luther  and  his  doctrines  were 
condemned  by  the  chief  of  Christendom/1* 
Multitudes  were  thrown  into  anxious  pertur- 
bation. If  the  strong  arm  of  the  emperor 
should  be  given  to  sustain  the  pope,  who 
would  be  able  to  stand  ?  Adrian,  one  of  the 
faculty  of  Wittenberg,  was  so  frightened  that 
he  threw  down  his  office  and  hastened  to  join 
the  enemy. 

Amid  the  perils  which  surrounded  Luther 
powerful  knights  offered  to  defend  him  by 
force  of  arms ;  but  he  answered,  "  No  ;  by  the 
Word  the  world  was  conquered,  by  the  Word 
the  Church  was  saved,  and  by  the  Word  it 
must  be  restored."  The  thoughts  of  his 
soul  were  not  on  human   power,  but   centred 

*  The  Bull  was  issued  June  15,  1520.  It  specified  forty-one 
propositions  out  of  Luther's  works  which  it  condemned  as  heret- 
ical, scandalous,  and  offensive  to  pious  ears.  It  forbade  all  per- 
sons to  read  his  writings,  upon  pain  of  excommunication.    Such 

as  had  any  of  his  hooks  in  their  possession  were  commanded  to 
burn  them.  lie  himself,  it'  he  did  not  publicly  recant  his  errors 
and  burn  his  hooks  within  sixty  days,  was  pronounced  an  obstinate 

heretic,  excommunicated  and  delivered  over  to  Satan.  And  it  en- 
joined upon  all  secular  princes,  under  pain  of  incurring  the  same 
censure,  to  seize   his  prison  and  deliver  him   up  to  I"'  punished  as 

his  crime-  deserved;  thai   is,  to  be   burnt  as  a  heretic. 


LUTHER  ANP>    THE   POPE'S  BULL.  81 

on  the  throne  of  Him  who  lives  for  ever.  It 
was  Christ's  Gospel  that  was  in  peril,  and  he 
was  sure  Jehovah  would  not  abandon  his  own 
cause. 

Germany  waited  to  see  what  he  would  do. 
Nor  was  it  long  kept  in  susj)ense. 

Luther  and  the  Pope's  Bull. 

In  a  month  he  discharged  a  terrific  volley 
of  artillery  upon  the  Papacy  by  his  book 
Against  the  Bull  of  Antichrist 

In  thirteen  days  later  he  brought  formal 
charges  against  the  pope—; first,  as  an  unjust 
judge,  who  condemns  without  giving  a  hear- 
ing ;  second,  as  a  heretic  and  apostate,  who 
requires  denial  that  faith  is  necessary ;  third, 
as  an  Antichrist,  who  sets  himself  against  the 
Holy  Scriptures  and  usurps  their  authority ; 
and  fourth,  as  a  blasphemer  of  the  Church 
and  its  free  councils,  who  declares  them 
nothing  without  himself. 

This  was  carrying  the  war  into  Africa. 
Appealing  to  a  future  general  council  and  the 
Scriptures  as  superior  to  popes,  he  now  called 
upon  the  emperor,  electors,  princes,  and  all 
classes  and  estates  in  the  whole  German  empire, 
as  they  valued  the  Gospel  and  the  favor  of 
Christ,  to  stand  by  him  in  this  demonstration. 


82  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

And,  that  all  might  be  certified  in  due  form, 
he  called  a  notary  and  five  witnesses  to  hear 
and  attest  the  same  as  verily  the  solemn  act 
and  deed  of  Martin  Luther,  done  in  behalf 
of  himself  and  all  who  stood  or  should  stand 
with  him. 

Rome  persisted  in  forcing  a  schism,  and 
this  was  Luther's  bill  of  divorcement. 

Nay,  more;  as  Rome  had  sealed  its  con- 
demnation of  him  by  burning  his  books,  he 
built  a  stack  of  fagots  on  the  refuse  piles  out- 
side the  Elster  Gate  of  Wittenberg,  invited 
thither  the  whole  university,  and  when  the 
fires  were  kindled  and  the  flames  were  high, 
he  cast  into  them,  one  by  one,  the  books  of  the 
canon  law,  the  Decretals,  the  Clementines,  the 
Papal  Extravagants,  and  all  that  lay  at  the 
base  of  the  religion  of  the  hierarchy!  And 
when  these  were  consumed  he  took  Leo's  Bull 
of  excommunication,  held  it  aloft,  exclaiming 
with  a  loud  voice,  "Since  thou  hast  afflicted 
the  saints  of  God,  be  thou  consumed  with  fire 
unquenchable!"  and  dashed  the  impious  doc- 
ument into  the  flames. 

Well  done  was  that!  Luther  considered  it 
the  best  act  of  his  life.  It  was  a  brave  heart, 
the  bravest  then  living  in  this  world,  that 
dared  to  do  it.     But  it  was  done  then  and  for 


THE  DIET  OF  WORMS.  83 

ever.  Wittenberg  looked  on  with  shoutings. 
The  whole  modern  world  of  civilized  man  haa 
ever  since  been  looking  on  with  thrilling 
wonder.  And  myriads  of  the  sons  of  God 
and  liberty  are  shouting  over  it  yet. 

The  miner's  son  had  come  up  full  abreast 
with  the  triple-crowned  descendant  of  the 
Medici.  The  monk  of  Wittenberg  had  matched 
the  proudest  monarch  in  the  world.  Henceforth 
the  question  was,  Which  of  them  should  sway 
the  nations  in  the  time  to  come? 

The  Diet  of  Worms. 

The  young  emperor  sided  with  the  religion 
of  the  pope.  The  venerable  Elector  Frederick 
determined  to  stand  by  Luther,  at  least  till  his 
case  was  fairly  adjudged.  He  said  it  was  not 
just  to  condemn  a  good  and  honest  man  unheard 
and  unconvicted,  and  that  "Justice  must  take 
precedence  even  of  the  pope." 

Conferences  of  state  now  became  numerous 
and  exciting,  and  the  efforts  of  Rome  to  have 
Luther's  excommunication  recognized  and  en- 
forced were  many  and  various,  but  nothing 
short  of  a  Diet  of  the  empire  could  settle  the 
disturbance.* 

*Audin,  in  his    Life  of   Luther,  says:  "A  monk    who   wore   a 
cassock    out   at   the   elbows   had   caused    to   the    most   powerful 


84  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

Such  a  Diet  was  convoked  by  the  young 
emperor  for  January,  1521.  It  was  the  first 
of  his  reign,  and  the  grandest  ever  held  on 
German  soil.  Philip  of  Hesse  came  to  it 
with  a  train  of  six  hundred  cavaliers.  The 
electors,  dukes,  archbishops,  landgraves,  mar- 
graves, counts,  bishops,  barons,  lords,  deputies, 
legates,  and  ambassadors  from  foreign  courts 
came  in  corresponding  style.  They  felt  it 
important  to  show  their  consequence  at  this 
first  Diet,  and  were  all  the  more  moved  to  be 
there  in  force  because  the  exciting  matter  of 
Reform  was  specified  as  one  of  the  chief 
things  to  be  considered.  The  result  was  one 
of  the  most  august  and  illustrious  assemblies 
of  which  modern  history  tells,  and  one  which 
presented  a  spectacle  of  lasting  wonder  that 
a  poor  lone  monk  should  thus  have  moved 
all  the  powers  of  the  earth. 

emperor  in  the  world  greater  embarrassments  than  those  which 
Francis  I.,  his  unsuccessful  rival  at  Frankfort,  threatened  to  raise 
against  him  in  Italy.  With  the  cannon  from  his  arsenal  at  Ghent 
and  his  lances  from  Namur,  Charles  could  beat  the  k i 1 1 1^  of  Fran  e 
between  Bunrise  and  sunset;  hut  lances  and  cannon  were  impotent 
to  subdue  the  religious  revolution,  which,  like  some  of  the  glaciers 
which  he  crossed  in  coming  from  Spain,  acquired  daily  a  new 
quantity  of  soil."  -Vol.  i.  chap.  25.  Again,  in  chap.  30,  he  says 
of  the  emperor :  "  The  thought  of  measuring  his  Btrength  with  the 
hero  of  Marignan  was  far  from  alarming  him,  but  a  struggle  with 
the  monk  of  Wittenberg  disturbed  Ins  sleep,  lie  wished  that  they 
should  try  to  overcome  his  obstinacy." 


DOINGS  OF  THE  ROMANISTS.  85 


Doings  of  the  Romanists. 

For  three  months  the  Diet  wrangled  over 
the  affair  of  Luther  without  reaching  any- 
thing decided.  The  friends  of  Rome  were 
the  chief  actors,  struggling  in  every  way  and 
hesitating  at  nothing  to  induce  the  Diet  and 
the  emperor  to  acknowledge  and  enforce  the 
pope's  decree.  But  the  influence  of  the  Ger- 
man princes,  especially  that  of  the  Elector 
Frederick,  stood  in  the  way  ;  Charles  would 
not  act,  as  he  had  no  right  to  act,  without  the 
concurrence  of  the  states,  and  the  princes  of 
Germany  held  it  unjust  that  Luther  should 
be  condemned  on  charges  which  had  never 
been  fairly  tried,  on  books  which  were  not 
proven  to  be  his,  and  especially  since  the 
sentence  itself  presented  conditions  with  ref- 
erence to  which  no  answer  had  been  legally 
ascertained. 

To  overcome  these  oppositions  different  re- 
sorts were  tried.  Leo  issued  a  second  Bull, 
excommunicating  Luther  absolutely,  and  ana- 
thematizing him  and  all  his  friends  and  abet- 
tors. The  pope's  legate  called  for  money  to 
buy  up  influence  for  the  Romanists :  "  We 
must  have  money.  Send  us  money.  Money  ! 
money !    or    Germany    is    lost !"     The    money 


86  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

came;  but  the  Reformer's  friends  could  not 
be  bought  with  bribes,  however  much  the 
agents  of  Koine  needed  such  stimulation. 

Trickery  was  brought  into  requisition  to 
entrap  Luther's  defenders  by  a  secret  proposal 
to  compromise.  Luther  was  given  great  credit 
and  right,  except  that  he  had  gone  a  little 
too  far,  and  it  was  only  necessary  to  restrain 
him  from  further  demonstrations.  Rome  com- 
promise with  a  man  she  had  doubly  excom- 
municated and  anathematized!  Rome  make 
terms  with  an  outlaw  whom  she  had  infallibly 
doomed  to  eternal  execration  !  Yet  with  these 
proposals  the  emperor's  confessor  approached 
Chancellor  Br  tick.  But  the  chancellor's  head 
was  too  clear  to  be  caught  by  such  treachery. 

Then  it  was  moved  to  refer  the  matter  to 
a  commission  of  arbitrators.  This  met  with 
so  much  favor  that  the  pope's  legate,  Alean- 
der,  was  alarmed  lest  Luther  should  there- 
by escape,  and  hence  set  himself  with  un- 
wonted energy  to  incite  the  emperor  to 
decisive  measures. 

Charles  was  persuaded  to  make  a  demon- 
stration, but  demanded  that  the  legate  should 
first  " convince  the  Diet."  Aleander  was  the 
most  famous  orator  Rome  had,  and  he  rejoiced 
in    Ins  opportunity.      He   went    before   the  as- 


LUTHER  SUMMONED.  87 

sembly  in  a  prepared  speech  of  three  hours 
in  length  to  show  up  Luther  as  a  pestilent 
heretic,  and  the  necessity  of  getting  rid  of 
him  and  his  books  and  principles  at  once  to 
prevent  the  world  from  being  plunged  into 
barbarism  and  utter  desolation.  He  made  a 
deep  impression  by  his  effort.  It  was  only 
by  the  unexpected  and  crushing  speech  of 
Duke  George  of  Saxony,  Luther's  bitter  per- 
sonal enemy,  that  the  train  of  things,  so  ener- 
getically wrought  up,  was  turned. 

Not  in  defence  of  Luther,  whom  he  dis- 
liked, but  in  defence  of  the  German  nation, 
he  piled  up  before  the  door  of  the  hierarchy 
such  an  overwhelming  array  of  its  oppressions, 
robberies,  and  scandals,  and  exposed  with  such 
an  unsparing  hand  the  falsities,  profligacies, 
cupidity,  and  beastly  indecencies  of  the  Ro- 
man clergy  and  officials,  that  the  emperor 
hastened  to  recall  the  edict  he  had  already 
signed,  and  yielded  consent  for  Luther  to  be 
called  to  answer  for  himself. 

Luther  Summoned. 

In  vain  the  pope's  legate  protested  that  it 

was  not  lawful  thus  to  bring  the    decrees  of 

the  sovereign  pontiff  into  question,  or  pleaded 

that    Luther's    daring   genius,    flashing   eyes, 


88  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

electric  speech,  and  thrilling  spirit  would  en- 
gender tumult  and  violence.  On  March  6th 
the  emperor  signed  a  summons  and  safe-con- 
duct for  the  Reformer  to  appear  in  Worms 
within  twenty-one  days,  to  answer  concerning 
his  doctrines  and  writings. 

So  far  the  thunders  of  the  Vatican  were 
blank. 

With  all  the  anxious  fears  which  such  a 
summons  would  naturally  engender,  Luther 
resolved  to  obey  it. 

The  pope's  adherents  fumed  in  their  help- 
lessness when  they  learned  that  he  wras  coming 
— coming,  too,  under  the  safe-conduct  of  the 
empire,  coming  to  have  a  hearing  before  the 
Diet ! — he  whom  the  infallible  Vicar  of  Heaven 
had  condemned  and  anathematized  !  Whither 
was  the  world  drifting? 

Luther's  friends  trembled  lest  he  should 
share  the  fate  of  Huss ;  his  enemies  trembled 
lest  he  should  escape  it;  and  both,  in  their 
several  ways,  tried   to  keep  him  back. 

Placards  of  his  condemnation  were  placed 
before  him  on  the  way,  and  spectacles  to  in- 
dicate his  certain  execution  were  enacted  in 
his  sight ;  but  he  was  not  the  man  to  be  de- 
terred by  the  prospect  of  being  burnt  alive  if 
God  called  for  the  sacrifice. 


LUTHER  SUMMONED.  89 

Lying  fraud  was  also  tried  to  seduce  and 
betray  him.  Glapio,  the  emperor's  confessor, 
who  had  tried  a  similar  trick  upon  the  Elector 
Frederick,  conceived  the  idea  that  if  Von  Sick- 
ingen  and  Bucer  could  be  won  for  the  plot, 
a  proposal  to  compromise  the  whole  matter 
amicably  might  serve  to  beguile  him  to  the 
chateau  of  his  friend  at  Ebernburg  till  his  safe- 
conduct  should  expire,  and  then  the  liars  could 
throw  off  the  mask  and  dispose  of  him  with 
credit  in  the  eyes  of  Rome.  The  glib  and 
wily  Glapio  led  in  the  attempt.  Von  Sick- 
ingen  and  Bucer  were  entrapped  by  his  bland 
hypocrisy,  and  lent  themselves  to  the  execution 
of  the  specious  proposition.  But  when  they 
came  to  Luther  with  it,  he  turned  his  back, 
saying,  "  If  the  emperor's  confessor  has  any- 
thing to  say  to  me  he  will  find  me  at  Worms." 

But  even  his  friends  were  alarmed  at  his 
coming.  It  was  feared  that  he  would  be 
destroyed.  The  Elector's  confidential  adviser 
sent  a  servant  out  to  meet  him,  beseeching  him 
by  no  means  to  enter  the  city.  "  Go  tell  your 
master,"  said  Luther,  "  I  will  enter  Worms 
though  as  many  devils  should  be  there  as  tiles 
upon  its  houses !"  And  he  did  enter,  with 
nobles,  cavaliers,  and  gentry  for  his  escort, 
and  attended  through  the  streets  by  a  larger 


90  LUTHER  AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

concourse  than  had  greeted  the  entry  of  the 
emperor  himself.* 

Luther  at  the  Diet. 

Charles  hurried  to  convene  his  council,  say- 
ing, "  Luther  is  come ;  what  shall  we  do  with 
him  ?" 

A  chancellor  and  bishop  of  Flanders  urged 
that  he  be  despatched  at  once,  and  this  scan- 
dalous humiliation  of  the  Holy  See  terminated. 
He  said  Sigismund  had  allowed  Huss  to  be 
burned,  and  no  one  was  bound  to  keep  faith 
with  a  heretic.  But  the  emperor  was  more 
moral  than  the  teachings  of  his  Church,  and 
said,  "  Not  so ;  we  have  given  our  promise, 
and  we  ought  to  keep  it." 

On  the  morrow  Luther  was  conducted  to 
the  Diet  by  the  marshal  of  the  empire.  The 
excited  people  so  crowded  the  gates  and 
jammed    about    the    doors    that   the    soldiers 

*  "The  reception  which  he  met  with  at  Worms  was  such  as  he 
might  have  reckoned  a  full  reward  of  all  his  labors  if  vanity  and 
the  love  of  applause  had  been  the  principles  by  which  he  was  in- 
fluenced, (neater  crowds  assembled  to  behold  him  than  had 
appeared  at  the  emperor's  public  entry ;  his  apartments  were 
daily  filled  with  princes  mid  personages  of  the  highest  rank;  and 
he  was  treated  with  all  the  respect  paid  to  those  who  possess  the 
power  of  directing  the  understanding  and  sentiments  of  ether  men 
-  :i  homage  more  sincere,  as  well  as  more  flattering,  than  any 
which  pre-eminence  in  birth  or  condition  command."—  Robertson's 
Charles  P.,  vol.  i.  p.  510. 


LUTHER  AT  THE  DIET.  91 

had  to  use  their  halberds  to  open  a  way  for 
him.  An  instinct  not  yet  interpreted  drew 
their  hearts  and  allied  them  with  the  hero. 
From  the  thronged  streets,  windows,  and 
housetops  came  voices  as  he  passed — voices 
of  petition  and  encouragement — voices  of  bene- 
diction on  the  brave  and  true — voices  of  sym- 
pathy and  adjuration  to  be  firm  in  God  and 
in  the  power  of  his  might.  It  was  Germany, 
Scandinavia,  England,  Scotland,  and  Holland ; 
it  was  the  Americas  and  hundreds  of  young 
republics  yet  unborn ;  it  was  the  whole  world 
of  all  after-time,  with  its  free  Gospel,  free 
conscience,  free  speech,  free  government,  free 
science,  and  free  schools, — uttering  themselves 
in  those  half-smothered  voices.  Luther  heard 
them  and  was  strengthened. 

But  there  was  no  danger  he  would  betray 
the  momentous  trust.  That  morning,  amid 
great  rugged  prayers  which  broke  from  him 
like  massive  rock-fragments  hot  and  burning 
from  a  volcano  of  mingled  faith  and  agony, 
laying  one  hand  on  the  open  Bible  and  lifting 
the  other  to  heaven,  he  cast  his  soul  on  Omnip- 
otence, in  pledge  unspeakable  to  obey  only  his 
conscience  and  his  God.  Whether  for  life  or 
death,  his  heart  was  fixed. 

A  few  steps  more  and  he  stood  before  Tm- 


92  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

perial  majesty,  encompassed  by  the  powers  and 
dignitaries  of  the  earth,  so  brave,  calm,  and 
true  a  man  that  thrones  and  kings  looked  on 
in  silent  awe  and  admiration,  and  even  malig- 
nant scorn  for  the  moment  retreated  into  dark- 
ness. Since  He  who  wore  the  crown  of  thorns 
stood  before  Pontius  Pilate  there  had  not  been 
a  parallel  to  this  scene.* 

Luther's  Refusal  to  Recant. 
*   A  weak,  j30or  man,  arraigned  and  alone  before 
the  assembled  powers  of  the  earth,  with  only  the 

*  A  Romanist  thus  describes  the  picture:  "When  the  approach 
of  Luther  was  heard  there  ensued  one  of  tliose  deep  silences  in 
which  the  heart  alone,  by  its  hurried  pulsations,  gives  sign  of 
life.  Attention  was  diverted  from  the  emperor  to  the  monk.  On 
the  appearance  of  Luther  every  one  rose,  regardless  of  the  sove- 
reign's presence.  It  inspired  Werner  with  one  of  the  finest  acts  of 
his  tragedy.  .  .  .  Heine  has  glorified  the  appearance  at  Worms. 
The  Catholic  himself  loves  to  contemplate  that  black  gown  in  the 
presence  of  those  lords  and  barons  caparisoned  in  iron  and  armed 
with  helmet  and  spear,  and  is  moved  by  the  voice  of  'that  young 
friar'  who  comes  to  defy  all  the  powers  of  the  earth." — Audio's 
Life  of  Luther. 

"All  parties  must  unite  in  admiring  and  venerating  the  man 
Who,  undaunted  and  alone,  could  stand  before  such  an  assem- 
bly, and  vindicate  with  unshaken  courage  what  he  conceived  to 
be  the  cause  of  religion,  of  liberty,  and  of  truth,  fearless  of  any 
reproaches  but  those  of  his  own  conscience,  or  of  any  disapproba- 
tion h:it  that  of  his  God."  -Roscoe's  Life  of  Leo  X.,  vol.  iv.  p.  .">(). 

Luther  hiins  II,  afterward  recalling  the  event,  slid  :  "  It  must 
indeed  have  been  God  who  gave  nie  my  boldness  of  heart ;  I 
doub:  if  I  cvuld  show  such  courage  again." 


LUTHER'S  REFUSAL   TO  RECANT.  93 

grace  of  God  and  his  cause  on  which  to  lean, 
had  demand  made  of  him  whether  or  not  he 
would  retract  his  books  or  any  part  of  them, 
Yes  or  No.  But  he  did  not  shrink,  neither 
did  he  falter.  "  Since  Your  Imperial  Majesty 
and  Your  Excellencies  require  of  me  a  direct 
and  simple  answer,  I  will  give  it.  To  the  pope 
or  councils  I  cannot  submit  my  faith,  for  it  is 
clear  that  they  have  erred  and  contradicted 
one  another.  Therefore,  unless  I  am  convinced 
by  proofs  from  Holy  Scripture  or  by  sound 
reasons,  and  my  judgment  by  this  means  is  com- 
manded by  God's  Word,  I  cannot  and  will  not 
retract  anything :  for  a  Christian  cannot  safely 
go  contrary  to  his  conscience."  And,  glancing 
over  the  august  assembly,  on  whose  will  his 
life  hung,  he  added  in  deep  solemnity,  those 
immortal  words  :  "  Here  I  stand.     I  can  do 

NO  OTHERWISE.       So  HELP  ME  GOD  !      AMEN."  * 

*  "  With  this  noble  protest  was  laid  the  keystone  of  the  Reforma- 
tion. The  pontifical  hierarchy  shook  to  its  centre,  and  the  great 
cause  of  truth  and  regenerate  religion  spread  with  electric  speed. 
The  marble  tomb  of  ignorance  and  error  gave  way,  as  it  were,  of 
a  sudden ;  a  thousand  glorious  events  and  magnificent  discoveries 
thronged  upon  each  other  with  pressing  haste  to  behold  and 
congratulate  the  mighty  birth,  the  new  creation,  of  which  they 
were  the  harbingers,  when,  with  a  steady  and  triumphant  step, 
the  peerless  form  of  human  intellect  rose  erect,  and,  throwing  off 
from  its  freshening  limbs  the  death-shade  and  the  grave-clothes  by 
which  it  was  enshrouded,  ascended  to  the  glorious  resurrection  of 
that  noontide  lustre  which  irradiates  the  horizon  of  our  own  day, 


94  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

Single  were  the  facts.  Luther  afterward 
wrote  to  a  friend :  "  I  expected  His  Majesty- 
would  bring  fifty  doctors  to  convict  the  monk 
outright;  but  it  was  not  so.  The  whole  history 
is  this:  Are  these  your  books?  Yes. — AVill 
you  retract  them?     No. — Well,  then,  begone." 

He  said  the  truth,  but  he  could  not  then 
know  all  that  was  involved  in  what  he  reduced 
to  such  a  simple  colloquy.  With  that  Yes  and 
No  the  wheel  of  ages  made  another  revolution. 
The  breath  which  spoke  them  turned  the  bal- 
ances in  which  the  whole  subsequent  history 
of  civilization  hung.  It  was  the  Yes  and  No 
which  applied  the  brakes  to  the  Juggernaut  of 
usurpation,  whose  ponderous  wheels  had  been 
crushing  through  the  centuries.  It  was  the 
Yes  and  No  which  evidenced  the  reality  of  a 
power  above  all  popes  and  empires.  It  was  the 
Yes  and  No  which  spoke  the  supreme  obligation 
of  the  human  soul  to  obey  God  and  conscience, 
and  started  once  more  the  pulsations  of  liberty 
in  the  arteries  of  man.  It  was  the  Yes  and  No 
which  divided  eras,  and  marked  the  summit 
whence  the  streams  began  to  form  and  flow  to 
give  back  to  this  world  a  Church  without  a 
pope  and  a  State  without  an  Inquisition. 

rejoicing  lilu-  a  giant  to  run  his  race." — John  Mason  Good's  Book 
0/  Ncturt,  p  321. 


LUTHER'S  CONDEMNATION.  95 

Charles  had  the  happiness  at  Worms  to  hear 
the  tidings  that  Fernando  Cortes  had  added 
Mexico  to  his  dominions.  The  emancipated 
peojiles  of  the  earth  in  the  generations  since 
have  had  the  happiness  to  know  that  at  Worms, 
through  the  inflexible  steadfastness  of  Martin 
Luther,  God  gave  the  inspirations  of  a  new 
and  better  life  for  them ! 

Luther's  Condemnation. 

After  Luther  and  his  friends  left  Worms 
the  emperor  issued  an  edict  putting  him  and 
all  his  adherents  under  the  ban  of  the  empire, 
forbidding  any  one  to  give  him  food  or  shelter, 
calling  on  all  who  found  him  to  arrest  him, 
commanding  all  his  books  to  be  burned,  and 
ordering  the  seizure  of  his  friends  and  the 
confiscation  of  their  possessions. 

It  was  what  Germany  got  for  putting  an 
Austro-Spanish  bigot  on  the  Imperial  throne. 

Luther  in  the  Wartburg. 

But  the  cause  of  Rome  was  not  helped  by 
it.  Luther's  person  was  made  safe  by  the 
Elector,  who  arranged  a  friendly  capture  by 
which  he  was  concealed  in  the  Wartburg  in 
charge  of  the  knights. 

No   one   knew   what   had  become   of  him. 


96  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

His  mysterious  disappearance  was  naturally 
referred  to  some  foul  play  of  the  Romanists, 
and  the  feeling  of  resentment  was  intense  and 
deep.  Indeed,  Germany  was  now  bent  on 
throwing  off  the  religion  of  the  hierarchy. 
No  matter  what  it  may  once  have  been,  no 
matter  what  service  it  may  have  rendered  in 
helping  Europe  through  the  Dark  Ages,  it 
had  become  gangrened,  perverted,  rotten, 
offensive,  unbearable.  The  very  means  Rome 
took  to  defend  it  increased  revolt  against  it. 
It  had  come  to  be  an  oppressive  lie,  and  it  had 
to  go.  No  Bulls  of  popes  or  edicts  of  emper- 
ors could  alter  the  decree  of  destiny. 

And  a  great  and  blessed  fortune  it  was  that 
Luther  still  lived  to  guide  and  counsel  in  the 
momentous  transition.  But  Providence  had 
endowed  him  for  the  purpose,  and  so  preserved 
him  for  its  execution.  What  was  born  with 
the  Theses,  and  baptized  before  the  Imperial 
Diet  at  Worms,  he  was  now  to  nourish,  educate, 
catechise,  and  prepare  for  glorious  confirmation 
before  a  similar  Diet  in  the  after  years. 

Translation  of  the  Bible. 
While  in  the  Wartburg  he  was  forbidden  to 
issue  any  writings.     Leisure  was  thus  afforded 
for   one  of  the    most   important   things    con- 


TRANSLATION   OF  THE  BIBLE.  97 

nected  with  the  Reformation.  Those  ten 
months  he  utilized  to  prepare  for  Germany 
and  for  the  world  a  translation  of  the  Holy 
Scriptures,  which  itself  was  enough  to  immor- 
talize the  Reformer's  name.  Great  intellec- 
tual monuments  have  come  down  to  us  from 
the  sixteenth  century.  It  was  an  age  in 
which  the  human  mind  put  forth  some  of  its 
noblest  demonstrations.  Great  communions 
still  look  back  to  its  Confessions  as  their 
rallying-centres,  and  millions  of  worshipers 
still  render  their  devotions  in  the  forms  which 
then  were  cast.  But  pre-eminent  over  all  the 
achievements  of  that  sublime  century  was  the 
giving  of  God's  Word  to  the  people  in  their 
own  language,  which  had  its  chief  centre  and 
impulse  in  the  production  of  Luther's  German 
Bible.  Well  has  it  been  said,  "  He  who  takes 
up  that,  grasps  a  whole  world  in  his  hand — a 
world  which  will  j>erish  only  when  this  green 
earth  itself  shall  pass  away." 

It  was  the  Word  that  kindled  the  heart  of 
Luther  to  the  work  of  Reformation,  and  the 
Word  alone  could  bring  it  to  its  consummation. 
With  the  Word  the  whole  Church  of  Christ 
and  the  entire  fabric  of  our  civilization  must 
stand  or  fall.  Undermine  the  Bible  and  you 
undermine  the  world.     It  is  the  one,  true,  and 

7 


98  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

only  Charter  of  Faith,  Liberty,  and  salvation 
for  man,  without  which  this  race  of  ours  is  a 
hopeless  and  abandoned  wreck.  And  when 
Luther  gave  forth  his  German  Bible,  it  was 
not  only  a  transcendent  literary  achievement, 
which  created  and  fixed  the  classic  forms  of 
his  country's  language/1'  but  an  act  of  supre- 
mest  wisdom  and  devotion ;  for  the  hope  of  the 
world  is  for  ever  cabled  to  the  free  and  open 
Word  of  God. 

Luther's  Conservatism. 
Up  to  the  time  of  Luther's  residence  in  the 
Wartburg  nothing  had  been  done  toward 
changing  the  outward  forms,  ceremonies,  and 
organization  of  the  Church.  The  great  thing 
with  him  had  been  to  get  the  inward,  central 
doctrine  right,  believing  that  all  else  would 
then  naturally  come  right  in  due  time.  But 
while  he  was  hidden  and  silent  certain  fanatics 
thrust  themselves  into  this  field,  and  were  on 
the  eve  of  precipitating  everything  to  destruc- 
tion. Tidings  of  the  violent  revolutionary 
spirit  which  had  broken   out  readied  him  in 

*  Chevalier  Bunsen  Bays;  "  It  is  Luther's  genius  applied  to  the 
]5il)le  which  has  preserved  tin-  only  unity  which  is,  in  our  days, 
remaining  to  the  German  nation  -that  of  language,  literature,  ami 
thought    There  is  no  similar  instance  in  the  known  history  of  the 

world  of  a  single  man  achieving  such  a  work.'7 


LUTHER'S  CONSERVATISM.  99 

his  retreat  and  stirred  him  with  sorrowful  in- 
dignation, for  it  was  the  most  damaging  blow 
inflicted  on  the  Reformation. 

It  is  hard  for  men  to  keep  their  footing 
amid  deep  and  vast  commotions  and  not  drift 
into  ruinous  excesses.  Storch,  and  Miinzer, 
and  Carlstadt,  and  Melanchthon  himself,  were 
dangerously  affected  by  the  whirl  of  things. 
Even  good  men  sometimes  forget  that  society 
cannot  be  conserved  by  mere  negations ;  that 
wild  and  lawless  revolution  can  never  work 
a  wholesome  and  abiding  reformation ;  that 
the  perpetuity  of  the  Church  is  an  historic 
chain,  each  new  link  of  which  depends  on 
those  which  have  gone  before. 

There  was  precious  gold  in  the  old  conglom- 
erate, which  needed  to  be  discriminated,  ex- 
tracted, and  preserved.  The  divine  founda- 
tions were  not  to  be  confounded  with  the 
rubbish  heaped  upon  them.  There  was  still 
a  Church  of  Christ  under  the  hierarchy, 
although  the  hierarchy  was  no  part  of  its  life 
or  essence.  The  Zwickau  prophets,  with  their 
new  revelations  and  revolts  against  civil  au- 
thority ;  the  Wittenberg  iconoclasts,  with  their 
repudiation  of  study  and  learning  and  all 
proper  church  order;  and  the  Sacra  mentarians, 
with   their    insidious    rationalism   against   the 


100         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

plain  Word, — were  not  to  be  entrusted  with 
the  momentous  interests  with  which  the  cause 
of  the  Reformation  was  freighted.  And  hence, 
at  the  risk  of  the  Elector's  displeasure  and 
at  the  peril  of  his  life,  Luther  came  forth 
from  his  covert  to  withstand  the  violence 
which  was  putting  everything  in  jeopardy. 

Grandly  also  did  he  reason  out  the  genuine 
Gospel  principles  against  all  these  parties. 
He  comprehended  his  ground  from  centre  to 
circumference,  and  he  held  it  alike  against 
erring  friends  and  menacing  foes.  The  swollen 
torrent  of  events  never  once  obscured  his  pro- 
phetic insight,  never  disturbed  the  balance  of 
his  judgment,  never  shook  his  hold  upon  the 
right.  AVith  a  master-power  he  held  revolu- 
tions and  wars  in  check,  while  he  revised  and 
purified  the  Liturgy  and  Order  of  the  Church, 
wrought  out  the  evangelic  truth  in  its  appli- 
cations to  existing  things,  and  reared  the 
renewed  habilitation  of  the  pure  Word  and 
sacraments. 

Growth  of  the  Reformation. 

It  was  now r  that    Pope  Leo  died.     His  glory 

lasted  bul  eighl  years.     His  successor,  Adrian 

VI.,  was  a   moderate  man,  of  good   intentions, 

though  he  could  not  see  what  evil  there  wad 


GROWTH  OF   THE  REFORMATION.  101 

in  indulgences.  He  exhorted  Germany  to 
get  rid  of  Luther,  but  said  the  Church  must 
be  reformed,  that  the  Holy  See  had  been  for 
years  horribly  polluted,  and  that  the  evils  had 
affected  head  and  members.  He  was  in  sol- 
emn earnest  this  time,  and  began  to  change 
and  purify  the  papal  court.  To  some  this  was 
as  if  the  voice  of  Luther  were  being  echoed 
from  St.  Peter's  chair,  and  Adrian  suddenly 
died,  no  man  knows  of  what,*  and  Clement 
VII. ,  a  relative  of  Leo  X.,  was  put  upon  the 
papal  throne. 

In  1524  a  Diet  was  convened  at  Nuremberg 
with  reference  to  these  same  matters.  Cam- 
peggio,  the  pope's  legate,  thought  it  prudent 
to  make  his  way  thither  without  letting  him- 
self be  known,  and  wrote  back  to  his  master 
that  he  had  to  be  very  cautious,  as  the  major- 
ity of  the  Diet  consisted  of  "  great  Lutherans." 
At  this  Diet  the  Edict  of  Worms  was  vir- 
tually annulled,  and  it  was  plain  enough  that 
"  great  Lutherans  "  had  become  very  numer- 
ous and  powerful. 

Luther  himself  had  become  of  sufficient 
consequence  for   Henry  VIII. ,  king  of  Eng- 

*  The  death  of  Adrian  VI.,  on  the  14th  of  September,  1523,  was 
a  subject  of  general  rejoicing  in  Rome.  There  was  a  crown  of 
flowers  hung  to  the  door  of  his  physician,  with  a  card  appended 
which  read,  "  To  the  savior  of  hm  country." 


102         LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

land,  to  write  a  book  against  him,  for  which 
the  pope  gave  him  the  title  of  "  Defender  of 
the  Faith,"  and  for  which  Luther  repaid 
him  in  his  own  coin.  Erasmus  also,  long 
the  prince  of  the  whole  literary  world,  was 
dogged  into  the  writing  of  a  book  against  the 
great  Reformer.  Poor  Erasmus  found  his 
match,  and  was  overwhelmed  with  the  result. 
He  afterward  sadly  wrote :  "  My  troops  of 
friends  are  turned  to  enemies.  Everywhere 
scandal  pursues  me  and  calumny  defiles  my 
name.     Every  goose  now  hisses  at  Erasmus." 

In  1525,  Luther's  friend  and  protector,  the 
Elector  Frederick,  died.  This  would  have 
been  a  sad  blow  for  the  Reformation  had 
there  been  no  one  of  like  mind  to  take  his 
place.  But  God  had  the  man  in  readiness. 
"  Frederick  the  Wise "  was  succeeded  by  his 
brother,  "  John  the  Constant." 

In  Hesse,  in  Holland,  in  Scandinavia,  in 
Prussia,  in  Poland,  in  Switzerland,  in  France, 
everywhere,  the  Reformation  advanced.  Duke 
George  of  Saxony  raged,  got  up  an  alliance 
against  the  growing  cause,  and  beheaded  cit- 
izens of  Leipsic  for  having  Luther's  writings 
in  their  houses.  Eck  still  howled  from  Ingol- 
stadt  for  fire  and  fagots.  The  dukes  of  Bava- 
ria were  fierce  with  persecutions.     The  arch- 


PROTESTANTS  AND    WAR.  103 

bishop  of  Mayence  punished  cities  because 
they  would  not  have  his  priests  for  pastors. 
The  emperor  from  Spain  announced  his  pur- 
pose to  crush  and  exterminate  "  the  wicked- 
ness of  Lutheranism."  But  it  was  all  in  vain. 
The  sun  had  risen,  the  new  era  had  come ! 

Luther  now  issued  his  Catechisms,  which 
proved  a  great  and  glorious  aid  to  the  true 
Gospel.  Henceforth  the  children  were  to  be 
bred  up  in  the  pure  faith.  Matthesius  says :  "  If 
Luther  in  his  lifetime  had  achieved  no  other 
work  but  that  of  bringing  his  two  Catechisms 
into  use,  the  whole  world  could  not  sufficiently 
thank  and  repay  him." 

A  quarrel  between  the  emperor  and  the  pope 
also  contributed  to  the  progress  of  the  Refor- 
mation. A  Diet  at  Spire  in  1526  had  inter- 
posed a  check  to  the  persecuting  spirit  of  the 
Romanists,  and  granted  toleration  to  those  of 
Luther's  mind  in  all  the  states  where  his  doc- 
trines were  approved.  The  respite  lasted  for 
three  years,  until  Charles  and  Clement  com- 
posed their  difference  and  united  to  wreak  their 
wrath  upon  Luther  and  his  adherents. 

Protestants  and  Wae. 
A   second  Diet  at  Spire,  in  1529,  revoked 
the  former  act  of  toleration,  and  demanded  of 


104         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION: 

all  the  princes  and  estates  an  unconditional 
surrender  to  the  pope's  decrees.  This  called 
forth  the  heroic  Protest  of  those  who  stood 
with  Luther.  They  refused  to  submit,  claim- 
ing that  in  matters  of  divine  service  and  the 
soul's  salvation  conscience  and  God  must  be 
obeyed  rather  than  earthly  powers.  It  was 
from  this  that  the  name  of  Protestants  origin- 
ated— a  name  which  half  the  world  now  honors 
and  accepts. 

The  signers  of  this  Protest  also  pledged  to 
each  other  their  mutual  support  in  defending 
their  position.  Zwingli  urged  them  to  make 
war  upon  the  emj^eror.  He  himself  afterward 
took  the  sword,  and  perished  by  it.  Calvin, 
Cranmer,  Knox,  and  even  the  Puritan  Fathers 
as  far  as  they  had  power  and  occasion,  resorted 
to  physical  force  and  the  civil  arm  to  punish 
the  rejecters  of  their  creed.  Luther  repu- 
diated all  such  coercion.  The  sword  was  at 
his  command,  but  he  opposed  its  use  for  any 
purposes  of  religion.  All  the  weight  of  his 
great  influence  was  given  to  prevent  his  friends 
from  mixing  external  force  with  what  should 
ever  have  its  seat  only  in  the  calm  conviction 
of  the  soul.  He  thus  practically  anticipated 
Roger  Williams  and  William  Penn  and  the 
most    lauded  results  of   modern    freedom — not 


THE  CONFESSION  OF  AUGSBURG.  105 

from  constraint  of  circumstances  and  personal 
interests,  but  from  his  own  clear  insight  into 
Gospel  principles.  Bloody  religious  wars 
came  after  he  was  dead,  the  prospect  of  which 
filled  his  soul  with  horror,  and  to  which  he 
could  hardly  give  consent  even  in  case  of 
direst  necessity  for  self-defence;  but  it  is  a 
transcendent  fact  that  while  he  lived  they 
were  held  in  abeyance,  most  of  all  by  his 
prayers  and  endeavors.  He  fought,  indeed, 
as  few  men  ever  fought,  but  the  only  sword 
he  wielded  was  "the  sword  of  the  Spirit, 
which  is  the  Word  of  God." 

The  Confession  of  Augsbukg. 
And  yet  another  Imperial  Diet  was  con- 
vened with  reference  to  these  religious  disturb- 
ances. It  was  held  in  Augsburg  in  the  spring 
of  1530.  The  emperor  was  in  the  zenith  of 
his  power.  He  had  overcome  his  French 
rival.  He  had  spoiled  Home,  humbled  the 
pope,  and  reorganized  Italy.  The  Turks  had 
withdrawn  their  armies.  And  the  only  thing 
in  the  way  of  a  consolidated  empire  was  the 
Reformation  in  Germany.  To  crush  this  was 
now  his  avowed  purpose,  and  he  anticipated 
no  great  hardship  in  doing  it.  He  entered 
Augsburg   with    unwonted    magnificence   and 


106  LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

pomp.  He  had  spoken  very  graciously  in 
his  invitation  to  the  princes,  but  it  was  in  his 
heart  to  compel  their  submission  to  his  former 
Edict  of  Worms.  It  behoved  them  to  be  pre- 
pared to  make  a  full  exhibit  of  their  prin- 
ciples, giving  the  ultimatum  on  which  they 
proposed  to  stand. 

Luther  had  been  formulating  articles  em- 
bodying the  points  adhered  to  in  his  reform- 
atory teachings.  He  had  prepared  one  set 
for  the  Marburg  Conference  with  the  Swiss 
divines.  He  had  revised  and  elaborated  these 
into  the  Seventeen  Articles  of  Schwabach. 
He  had  also  j)repared  another  series  on  abuses, 
submitted  to  the  Elector  John  at  Torgau. 
All  these  were  now  committed  to  Melanchthon 
for  careful  elaboration  into  complete  style  and 
harmony  for  use  at  the  Diet.  Luther  assisted 
in  this  work  up  to  the  time  when  the  Diet 
convened,  and  what  remained  to  be  done  was 
completed  in  Augsburg  by  Melanchthon  and 
the  Lutheran  divines  present  with  him.  Lu- 
ther himself  could  not  be  there,  as  he  was 
;i  dead  man  to  the  law,  and  by  command  of 
his  prince  was  detained  at  Coburg  while  the 
Diet  was  in  session. 

The  first  act  of  the  emperor  was  to  summon 
the   protesting  princes    before  him,  asking  of 


THE  CONFESSION  OF  AUGSBURG.  107 

them  the  withdrawal  of  their  Protest.  This 
they  refused.  They  felt  that  they  had  constitu- 
tional right,  founded  on  the  decision  of  Spire, 
to  resist  the  emperor's  demand;  and  they 
did  not  intend  to  surrender  the  just  principles 
put  forth  in  their  noble  Protest.  They  cele- 
brated divine  service  in  their  quarters,  led 
by  their  own  clergy,  and  refused  to  join  in 
the  procession  at  the  Roman  festival  of  Corpus 
Christi.  This  gave  much  offence,  and  for  the 
sake  of  peace  they  discontinued  their  services 
during  the  Diet. 

At  length  they  were  asked  to  make  their 
doctrinal  presentation.  Melanchthon  had  ad- 
mirably performed  the  work  assigned  him  in 
the  making  up  of  the  Confession,  and  on  the 
25th  day  of  June,  1530,  the  document,  duly 
signed,  was  read  aloud  to  the  emperor  in  the 
hearing  of  many. 

The  effect  of  it  upon  the  assembly  was 
indescribable.  Many  of  the  prejudices  and 
false  notions  against  the  Reformers  were  ef- 
fectually dissipated.  The  enemies  of  the  Ref- 
ormation felt  that  they  had  solemn  realities 
to  deal  with  which  they  had  never  imagined. 
Others  said  that  this  was  a  more  effectual 
preaching  than  that  which  had  been  suppress- 
ed.   "  Christ  is  in  the  Diet,"  said  Justus  Jonas, 


108         LUTHER    AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

"and  he  does  not  keep  silence.  God's  Wo r«d 
cannot  be  bound."  In  a  word,  the  world  now 
had  added  to  it  one  of  its  greatest  treasures — 
the  renowned  and  imperishable  Augsburg 
Confession. 

Luther  was  eager  for  tidings  of  what  tran- 
spired at  the  Diet.  And  when  the  Confession 
came,  as  signed  and  delivered,  he  wrote :  "  I 
thrill  with  joy  that  I  have  lived  to  see  the 
hour  in  which  Christ  is  preached  by  so  many 
confessors  to  an  assembly  so  illustrious  in  a 
form  so  beautiful." 

Even  Reformed  authors,  from  Calvin  down, 
have  cheerfully  added  their  testimony  to  the 
worth  and  excellence  of  this  magnificent  Con- 
fession — the  first  since  the  Athanasian  Creed. 
A  late  writer  of  this  class  says  of  it  that  "  it 
best  exhibits  the  prevailing  genius  of  the  Ger- 
man Reformation,  and  will  ever  be  cherished 
as  one  of  the  noblest  monuments  of  faith 
from  the  pentecostal  period  of  Protestantism." 

The  Romanists  attempted  to  answer  the 
noble  Confession,  but  would  not  make  their 
Confutation  public.  Compromises  were  pro- 
posed, but  they  came  to  naught.  The  Imperial 
troops  were  called  into  the  city  and  the  gates 
closed  to  intimidate  the  princes,  but  it  resulted 
in  greater  alarm    to    the   Romanists   than   to 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  SMALCALD.  109 

them.  The  confessors  had  taken  their  stand, 
and  they  were  not  to  be  moved  from  it.  The 
Diet  ended  with  the  decision  that  they  should 
have  until  the  following  spring  to  determine 
whether  they  would  submit  to  the  Roman 
Church  or  not?  and,  if  not,  that  measures 
would  then  be  taken  for  their  extermination. 

The  League  of  Smalcald. 

The  emperor's  edict  appeared  November 
19th,  and  the  Protestant  princes  at  once 
proceeded  to  form  a  league  for  mutual  pro- 
tection against  attempts  to  force  their  consciences 
in  these  sacred  matters.  It  was  with  difficulty 
that  the  consent  of  Luther  could  be  obtained 
for  what,  to  him,  looked  like  an  arrangement 
to  support  the  Gospel  by  the  sword.  But  he 
yielded  to  a  necessity  forced  by  the  intolerance 
of  Rome.  A  convention  was  held  at  Smalcald 
at  Christmas,  1530,  and  there  was  formed  the 
League  of  Smalcald^  which  planted  the  political 
foundations  of  Religious  Liberty  for  our  modern 
world. 

By  the  presentation  of  the  great  Confession 
of  Augsburg,  along  with  the  formation  of  the 
League  of  Smalcald,  the  cause  of  Luther  be- 
came embodied  in  the  official  life  of  nations, 
and  the  new  era  of  Freedom  had  come  safely 


110         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

to  its  birth.  Long  and  terrible  storms  were 
yet  to  be  passed,  but  the  ship  was  launched 
which  no  thunders  of  emperors  or  popes 
could  ever  shatter.* 

When  the  months  of  probation  ended, 
France  had  again  become  troublesome  to  the 
emperor,  and  the  Turks  were  renewing  their 
movements  against  his  dominions.  He  also 
found  that  he  could  not  count  on  the  Catholic 
princes  for  the  violent  suppression  of  the 
Protectants.  Luther's  doctrines  had  taken 
too  deep  hold  upon  their  subjects  to  render  it 
safe  to  join  in  a  war  of  extermination  against 
them. 

The  Zwinglians  also  coalesced  with  the  Lutli- 

*  "  The  Reformation  of  Luther  kindled  up  the  minds  of  men 
afresh,  leading  to  new  habits  of  thought  and  awakening  in  in- 
dividuals energies  before  unknown  to  themselves.  The  religious 
controversies  of  this  period  changed  society,  as  well  as  religion, 
and  to  a  considerable  extent,  where  they  did  not  change  the 
religion  of  the  state,  they  changed  man  himself  in  his  modes 
of  thought,  his  consciousness  of  his  own  powers,  and  his  desire  of 
intellectual  attainment.  The  spirit  of  commercial  and  foreign 
adventure  on  the  one  hand  and,  on  the  other  the  assertion  and 
maintenance  of  religious  liberty,  having  their  source  in  the 
Reformation,  and  this  love  of  religious  liberty  drawing  after  it  or 
bringing  along  with  it,  as  it  always  does,  an  ardent  devotion  to  the 
principle  of  civil  liberty  also,  were  tin-  powerful  influences  under 
v/hich  character  was  formed  and  men  trained  for  the  great  irorl 
of  introducing  English  civilization.  English  law,  and,  what  i;  more 
than  all,  Anglo-Saxon  blood,  into  the  wilderness  of  North 
America." — Daniel  Webster,  \lrurk»,  vol.  i.  p.  IM. 


LV THEWS  LATER    YEARS.  HI 

erans  in  presenting  a  united  front  against  the 
threatened  bloody  coercion.  The  Smalcald 
League,  moreover,  had  grown  to  be  a  power 
which  even  the  emperor  could  not  despise.  He 
therefore  resolved  to  come  to  terms  with  the 
Protestant  members  of  his  empire,  and  a  peace 
— at  least  a  truce — was  concluded  at  Nurem- 
berg, which  left  things  as  they  were  to  wait 
until  a  general  council  should  settle  the  ques- 
tions in  dispute. 

Luther's  Later  Years. 
Luther  lived  nearly  fifteen  years  after  this 
grand  crowning  of  his  testimony,  diligently 
laboring  for  Christ  and  his  country.  The 
most  brilliant  part  of  his  career  was  over, 
but  his  labors  still  were  great  and  important. 
Indeed,  his  whole  life  was  intensely  laborious. 
He  was  a  busier  man  than  the  First  Napoleon. 
His  publications,  as  reckoned  up  by  Secken- 
dorf,  amount  to  eleven  hundred  and  thirty- 
seven.  Large  and  small  together,  they  num- 
ber seven  hundred  and  fifteen  volumes — one 
for  every  two  weeks  that  he  lived  after  issuing 
the  first.  Even  in  the  last  six  weeks  of  his 
life  he  issued  thirty-one  publications — more 
than  five  per  week.  If  he  had  had  no  other 
cares  and   duties  but  to   occupy  himself  with 


112         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

his  pen,  this    would   still   prove   him    a  very 
Hercules  in  authorship.* 

But  his  later  years  were  saddened  by  many 
anxieties,  afflictions,  and  trials.  Under  God, 
he  had  achieved  a  transcendent  work,  and 
his  confidence  in  its  necessity,  divinity,  and 
perpetuity  never  failed ;  but  he  was  much 
distressed  to  see  it  marred  and  damaged,  as  it 
was,  by  the  weaknesses  and  passions  of  men. 

*  "  Never  before  was  the  human  mind  more  prolific."  "  Luther 
holds  a  high  and  glorious  place  in  German  literature."  "In  his 
manuscripts  we  nowhere  discover  the  traces  of  fatigue  or  irritation, 
no  embarrassment  or  erasures,  no  ill-applied  epithet  or  unmanage- 
able expression ;  and  by  the  correctness  of  his  writing  we  might 
imagine  he  was  the  copyist  rather  than  the  writer  of  the  work." — 
So  says  Audin,  his  Koman  Catholic  biographer. 

Hallam's  flippant  and  disparaging  remarks  on  Luther,  contained 
in  his  Introduction  to  the  Literature  of  Europe,  are  simply  outrage- 
ous, "stupid  and  senseless  paragraphs."  evidencing  a  presump- 
tion on  the  part  of  their  author  which  deserves  intensest  rebuke. 
"  Ilallam  knows  nothing  about  Luther;  he  himself  confesses  his 
inability  to  read  him  in  his  native  German;  and  this  alone  ren- 
ders him  incapable  of  judging  intelligently  respecting  his  merits 
as  a  writer;  and,  knowing  nothing,  it  would  have  been  honor- 
able in  him  to  say  nothing,  at  least  to  say  nothing  dispar- 
agingly. And,  by  the  way,  it  seems  to  us  that  writing  a  his- 
tory of  European  literature  without  a  knowledge  of  German  is 
much  like  writing  a  history  of  metals  without  knowing  any- 
thing of  iron  and  steel.  .  .  .  Luther's  language  became,  through 
his  writings,  and  has  ever  Bince  remained,  the  language  of  liter- 
ature and  genera]  intercourse  among  educated  men,  and  is  that 
which  is  now  understood  universally  to  be  meant  when  the  Ger- 
man is  spoken  of.  His  translation  of  the  Bible  is  still  as  much  the 
standard  of  purity  for  that  language  as  Homer  is  for  the  Greek." — 
Dr.  Calvin  E.  stuue. 


LUTHER'S  LATER    YEARS.  H3 

His  great  influence  created  jealousies.  His 
persistent  conservatism  gave  offence.  Those 
on  whom  he  most  relied  betimes  imperiled 
his  cause  by  undue  concessions  and  pusillan- 
imity. The  friends  of  the  Reformation  often 
looked  more  to  political  than  Christian  ends, 
or  were  more  carnal  than  spiritual.  Threat- 
ening civil  commotions  troubled  him.  Ultra 
reform  attacked  and  blamed  him.  The  agita- 
tions about  a  general  council,  which  Rome 
now  treacherously  urged,  and  meant  to  pack 
for  its  own  purposes,  gave  him  much  anxiety. 
It  was  with  reference  to  such  a  council  that 
one  other  great  document — The  Articles  of 
Smalcald — issued  from  his  pen,  in  which  he 
defined  the  true  and  final  Protestant  position 
with  regard  to  the  hierarchy,  and  the  funda- 
mental organization  of  the  Church  of  Christ. 
His  bodily  ailments  also  became  frequent  and 
severe. 

Prematurely  old,  and  worn  out  with  cares, 
labors,  and  vexations — the  common  lot  of 
great  heroes  and  benefactors — he  began  to 
long  for  the  heavenly  rest.  "  I  am  weary 
of  the  world,"  said  he,  "  and  it  is  time  the 
world  were  weary  of  me.  The  parting  will 
be  easy,  like  a  traveler  leaving  his  inn." 

He  lived  to  his  sixty-third  year,  and  peace- 


114         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORM 'AT/OS. 

fully  died  in  the  faith  he  so  effectually 
preached,  while  on  a  mission  of  reconciliation 
at  the  place  where  he  was  born,  honored  and 
lamented  in  his  death  as  few  men  have  ever 
been.  His  remains  repose  in  front  of  the 
chancel  in  the  castle  church  of  Wittenberg, 
on  the  door  of  which  his  own  hand  had  nailed 
the  Ninety-five  Theses.* 

Persoxale  of  Luther. 
The  personal  appearance  of  this  extraor- 
dinary man  is  but  poorly  given  in  the  painted 
portraits  of  him.  Written  descriptions  inform 
us  that  he  was  of  medium  size,  handsomely 
proportioned,  and  somewhat  darkly  complected. 
His  arched  brows,  high  cheek-bones,  and  pow- 
erful jaws  and  chin  gave  to  his  face  an  outline 

*  "  Nothing  can  be  more  edifying  than  the  scene  presented  by 
the  last  days  of  Luther,  of  which  we  have  the  most  authentic  and 
detailed  accounts.  When  dying  he  collected  his  last  strength  and 
offered  up  the  following  prayer:  'Heavenly  Father,  eternal,  mer- 
ciful God,  thou  hast  revealed  to  me  thy  dear  Son,  our  Lord  Jesus 
Christ.  Him  I  have  taught,  him  I  have  confessed,  him  I  love  as 
my  Saviour  and  Redeemer,  whom  the  wicked  persecute,  dishonor, 
and  nprove.     Take  my  poor  soul  up  to  thee!' 

''Then  two  of  his  friends  put  to  him  the  solemn  question  :  '  Rev- 
erend Father,  do  you  die  in  Christ  and  in  the  doctrine  you  have 
constantly  preached?'  He  answered  by  an  audible  and  joyful 
'Fes,-'  and,  repeating  the  verse, 'Father,  into  thy  hands  I  com- 
mend my  spirit,'  he  expired  peacefully,  without  a  druggie." — 
Eucyc.  Britannica, 


PERSON  ALE   OF  LUTHER.  115 

of  ruggedness ;  but  bis  features  were  regular, 
and  softened  all  over  witb  benevolence  and 
every  refined  feeling.  He  had  remarkable 
eyes,  large,  full,  deep,  dark,  and  brilliant,  with 
a  sort  of  amber  circle  around  the  pupil,  which 
made  them  seem  to  emit  fire  when  under 
excitement.  His  hair  was  dark  and  waving, 
but  became  entirely  white  in  his  later  years. 
His  mouth  was  elegantly  formed,  expressive 
of  determination,  tenderness,  affection,  and 
humor.  His  countenance  was  elevated,  open, 
brave,  and  unflinching.  His  neck  was  short 
and  strong  and  his  breast  broad  and  full. 

Though  compactly  built,  he  was  generally 
spare  and  wasted  from  incessant  studies,  hard 
labor,  and  an  abstemious  life. 

Mosellanus,  the  moderator  at  the  Leipsic 
Disputation,  describes  him  quite  fully  as  he 
appeared  at  that  time,  and  says  that  "  his  body 
was  so  reduced  by  cares  and  study  that  one 
could  almost  count  his  bones."  He  himself 
makes  frequent  allusion  to  his  wasted  and  en- 
feebled body.  His  health  was  never  robust. 
He  was  a  small  eater.  Melanchthon  says : 
"  I  have  seen  him,  when  he  was  in  full  health, 
absolutely  neither  eat  nor  drink  for  four  days 
together.  At  other  times  I  have  seen  him,  for 
many    days,  content  with  the  slightest  allow- 


116         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

ance,  a  salt  herring  and  a  small  hunch  of  bread 
per  day." 

Mosellanus  further  says  that  his  manners 
were  cultured  and  friendly,  with  nothing  of 
stoical  severity  or  pride  in  him — that  he  was 
cheerful  and  full  of  wit  in  company,  and  at  all 
times  fresh,  joyous,  inspiring,  and  pleasant. 

Honest  naturalness,  grand  simplicity,  and  an 
unpretentious  majesty  of  character  breathed 
all  about  him.  An  indwelling  vehemency,  a 
powerful  will,  and  a  firm  confidence  could 
readily  be  seen,  but  calm  and  mellowed  with 
generous  kindness,  without  a  trace  of  selfish- 
ness or  vanity.  He  was  jovial,  free-spoken, 
open,  easily  approached,  and  at  home  with  all 
classes. 

Audin  says  of  him  that  "  his  voice  was  clear 
and  sonorous,  his  eye  beaming  with  fire,  his 
head  of  the  antique  cast,  his  hands  beautiful, 
and  his  gesture  graceful  and  abounding — at 
once  Rabelais  and  Fontaine,  with  the  droll 
humor  of  the  one  and  the  polished  elegance 
of  the  other." 

In  society  and  in  his  home  he  was  genial, 
playful,  instructive,  and  often  brilliant.  His 
Table-Talk,  collected  (not  always  judiciously) 
by  his  friends,  Is  one  of  the  most  original  and 
remarkable  of  productions.     He  loved  children 


PERSONAL E  OF  LUTHER.  117 

and  young  people,  and  brought  up  several  in 
his  house  besides  his  own.  He  had  an  inex- 
haustible flow  of  ready  wit  and  good-humor, 
prepared  for  everybody  on  all  occasions.  He 
was  a  frank  and  free  correspondent,  and  let 
out  his  heart  in  his  letters,  six  large  volumes 
of  which  have  been  preserved. 

He  was  specially  fond  of  music,  and  cul- 
tivated it  to  a  high  degree.  He  could  sing 
and  play  like  a  woman.*     "  I  have  no  pleasure 

*  Mattiihus  Ratzenbergor,  in  a  passage  of  his  biography  preserved 
in  the  Bibliolheca  Ducalis  Gothana,  says:  "  Lutherus  had  also  this 
custom :  as  soon  as  he  had  eaten  the  evening  meal  with  his  table 
companions  he  would  fetch  out  of  his  little  writing-room  his  partes 
and  hold  a  musicam  with  those  of  them  who  had  a  mind  for  music. 
Greatly  was  he  delighted  when  a  good  composition  of  the  old  mas- 
ter fitted  the  responses  or  hymnos  de  tempore  anni,  and  especially 
did  he  enjoy  the  cantu  Gregoria.ua  and  chorale.  But  if  at  times  he 
perceived  in  a  new  song  that  it  was  incorrectly  copied  he  set  it 
again  upon  the  lines  (that  is,  he  brought  the  parts  together  and 
rectified  it  in  continent)').  Right  gladly  did  he  join  in  the  singing 
when  hymnus  or  resp&nsorium  de  tempore  had  been  set  by  the  Mu- 
sicus  to  a  Cantum  Gregoriannm,  as  we  have  said,  and  his  young 
sons,  Marthms  and  Paulus,  had  also  after  table  to  sing  the  respon- 
soria  de  tempore,  as  at  Christmas,  Verbum  euro  factum  est,  In  prin- 
cipio  erat  verbum;  at  Easter,  Christus  resurgent  ex  mortals,  Vita 
sanctorum,  Victimce  paschali  laudes,  etc.  In  these  respomoria  he 
always  sang  along  with  his  sons,  and  in  cantu  figurali  he  sang  the 
alto." 

The  alto  which  Luther  sang  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
alto  part  of  to-day.  Here  it  means  the  cantiis  firmw,  the  melody 
around  which  the  old  composers  wove  their  contrapuntal  orna- 
mentation. 

Luther  was  the  creator  of  German  congregationaJ  singing. 


118         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

in  any  man,"  said  he,  "  who  despises  music 
It  is  no  invention  of  ours ;  it  is  the  gift  of 
God.     I  place  it  next  to  theology." 

He  was  himself  a  great  musician  and  hym- 
nist.  Handel  confesses  that  he  derived  singular 
advantage  from  the  study  of  his  music  ;  and 
Coleridge  says :  "  He  did  as  much  for  the 
Reformation  by  his  hymns  as  by  his  transla- 
tion of  the  Bible."  To  this  day  he  is  the 
chief  singer  in  a  Church  of  pre-eminent  song. 
Heine  speaks  of  "  those  stirring  songs  which 
escaped  from  him  in  the  very  midst  of  his 
combats  and  necessities,  like  flowers  making 
their  way  from  between  rough  stones  or  moon- 
beams glittering  among  dark  clouds."  Ein 
feste  Burg  welled  from  his  great  heart  like 
the  gushing  of  the  waters  from  the  smitten 
rock  of  Horeb  to  inspirit  and  refresh  God's 
faint  and  doubting  people  as  long  as  the 
Church  is  in  this  earthly  wilderness.  There 
is  a  mighty  soul  in  it  which  lifts  one,  as  on 
eagles'  wTings,  high  and  triumphant  over  the 
blackest  storms.  And  his  whole  life  was  a 
brilliantly  enacted  epic  of  marvelous  grand- 
eur and  pathos.* 

*  Luther's  fust  poetic  publication  seems  to  have  hern  certain 
verses  composed  on  the  martyrdom  of  two  young  Christian 
monks,  who  were  burned  alive  at  Brussels  in  1523  for  their 
faithful  confession  of  th  ■  evangelical  doctrines.     A  translation  of 


HIS  GREAT  QUALITIES.  H9 

His  Great  Qualities. 

Luther's  qualities  of  mind,  heart,  and  attain- 
ment were  transcendent.  Though  naturally 
meek  and  diffident,  when  it  came  to  matters  of 
duty  and  conviction  he  was  courageous,  self- 
sacrificing,  and  brave  beyond  any  mere  man 
known  to  history.  Elijah  fled  before  the 
threats  of  Jezebel,  but  no  powers  on  earth 
could  daunt  the  soul  of  Luther.  Even  the 
apparitions  of  the  devil  himself  could  not 
disconcert  him, 

Roman  Catholic  authors  agree  that  "  Nature 
gave  him  a  German  industry  and  strength  and 
an  Italian  spirit  and  vivacity,"  and  that  "  no- 

a  part  of  this  composition  is  given  in  D'Aubigne"s  History  of  the 
Reformation  in  these  beautiful  and  stirring  words : 

"  Flung  to  the  heedless  winds  or  on  the  waters  cast, 
Their  ashes  shall  be  watched,  and  gathered  at  the  last; 
And  from  that  scattered  dust,  around  us  and  abroad, 
Shall  spring  a  plenteous  seed  of  witnesses  for  God. 

"Jesus  hath  now  received  their  latest  living  breath, 
Yet  vain  is  Satan's  boast  of  victory  in  their  death. 
Still,  still,  though  dead,  they  speak,  and  trumpet-tongued  proclaim 
To  many  a  wakening  land  the  One  availing  Name." 

Audin,  though  a  Romanist,  says:  "The  hymns  which  he  trans- 
lated from  the  Latin  into  German  may  be  unreservedly  praised,  as 
also  those  which  he  composed  for  the  members  of  his  own  com- 
munion. He  did  not  travesty  the  sacred  Word  nor  set  his  anger 
to  music.  He  is  grave,  simple,  solemn,  and  grand.  He  was  at 
once  the  poet  and  musician  of  a  great  number  of  his  hymns." 


120         LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

body  excelled  him  in  philosophy  and  theology, 
and  nobody  equaled  him  in  eloquence." 

His  mental  range  was  not  confined  to  any 
one  set  of  subjects.  In  the  midst  of  his  pro- 
found occupation  with  questions  of  divinity 
and  the  Church  "his  mind  was  literally  world- 
wide. His  eyes  were  for  ever  observant  of 
what  was  around  him.  At  a  time  when  science 
was  hardly  out  of  its  shell  he  had  observed 
Nature  with  the  liveliest  curiosity.  He  studied 
human  nature  like  a  dramatist.  Shakespeare 
himself  drew  from  him.  His  memory  was  a 
museum  of  historical  information,  anecdotes 
of  great  men,  and  old  German  literature, 
songs,  and  proverbs,  to  the  latter  of  which  he 
made  many  rich  additions  from  his  own  genius. 
Scarce  a  subject  could  be  spoken  of  on  which 
he  had  not  thought  and  on  which  he  had  not 
something  remarkable  to  say."  *  In  consult- 
ations upon  public  affairs,  when  the  most 
important  things  hung  in  peril,  his  con- 
temporaries speak  with  amazement  of  the 
gigantic  strength  of  his  mind,  the  unexampled 
acuteness  of  his  intellect,  the  breadth  and 
loftiness  of  h's  understanding  and  counsels. 

But,  though  so  great  a  genius,  he  laid  great 
stress  on  sound  and  thorough  learning  and 
,:  Froude  supplemented. 


HIS  GREAT  QUALITIES.  121 

study.  "  The  strength  and  glory  of  a  town," 
said  he,  "  does  not  depend  on  its  wealth,  its  walls, 
its  great  mansions,  its  powerful  armaments,  but 
in  the  number  of  its  learned,  serious,  kind, 
and  well-educated  citizens."  He  was  himself 
a  great  scholar,  far  beyond  what  we  would  sus- 
pect in  so  perturbed  a  life,  or  what  he  cared 
to  parade  in  his  writings.  He  mastered  the 
ancient  languages,  and  insisted  on  the  perpetual 
study  of  them  as  "  the  scabbard  which  holds 
the  sword  of  the  Spirit,  the  cases  which  en- 
close the  precious  jewels,  the  vessels  which 
contain  the  old  wine,  the  baskets  which  carry 
the  loaves  and  the  fishes  for  the  feeding  of  the 
multitude."  His  associates  say  of  him  that  he 
was  a  great  reader,  eagerly  perusing  the  Church 
Fathers,  old  and  new,  and  all  histories,  well 
retaining  what  he  read,  and  using  the  same 
with  great  skill  as  occasion  called. 

Melanchthon,  who  knew  him  well,  and 
knew  well  how  to  judge  of  men's  powers  and 
attainments,  said  of  him :  "  He  is  too  great, 
too  wonderful,  for  me  to  describe.  Whatever 
he  writes,  whatever  he  utters,  goes  to  the 
soul  and  fixes  itself  like  arrows  in  the  heart. 
He  is  a  miracle  among  mm." 

Nor  was  he  without  the  humility  of  true 
greatness.      Newton's    comparison    of  himself 


122         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

to  a  child  gathering  shells  and  pebbles  on 
the  shore,  while  the  great  ocean  of  truth  lay 
all  undiscovered  before  him,  has  been  much 
cited  and  lauded  as  an  illustration  of  the 
modesty  of  true  science.  But  long  before 
Newton  had  Luther  said  of  himself,  in  the 
midst  of  his  mighty  achievements,  "  Only 
a  little  of  the  first  fruits  of  wisdom — only 
a  few  fragments  of  the  boundless  heights, 
breadths,  and  depths  of  truth — have  I  been 
able  to  gather." 

He  was  a  man  of  amazing  faith — that 
mighty  principle  which  looks  at  things  in- 
visible, joins  the  soul  to  divine  Omnipotence, 
and  launches  out  unfalteringly  upon  eternal 
realities,  and  which  is  ever  the  chief  factor  in 
all  God's  heroes  of  every  age.  He  dwelt  in 
constant  nearness  and  communion  with  the 
Eternal  Spirit,  which  reigns  in  the  heavens 
and  raises  the  willing:  and  obedient  into  bless- 
ed  instruments  of  itself  for  the  actualizing 
of  ends  and  ideals  beyond  and  above  the 
common  course  of  things.  With  his  feet 
ever  planted  on  the  promises,  he  could  lay 
his  hands  upon  the  Throne,  and  thus  was 
lifted  into  a  sublimity  of  energy,  endurance, 
and  command  which  made  him  one  of  the 
phenomenal    wonders   of   humanity,     lie  was 


HIS  ALLEGED  COARSENESS.  123 

a  very  Samson  in  spiritual  vigor,  and  another 
Hannah's  son  in  the  strength  and  victory  of 
his  prayers. 

Dr.  Calvin  E.  Stowe  says :  "  There  was 
probably  never  created  a  more  powerful  human 
being,  a  more  gigantic,  full-proportioned  man, 
in  the  highest  sense  of  the  term.  All  that 
belongs  to  human  nature,  all  that  goes  to  con- 
stitute a  man,  had  a  strongly-marked  develop- 
ment in  him.  He  was  a  model  man,  one  that 
might  be  shown  to  other  beings  in  other  parts 
of  the  universe  as  a  specimen  of  collective 
manhood  in  its  maturest  growth." 

As  the  guide  and  master  of  one  of  the 
greatest  revolutions  of  time  we  look  in  vain 
for  any  one  with  whom  to  compare  him,  and 
as  a  revolutionary  orator  and  preacher  he  had 
no  equal.  Bichter  says,  "  His  words  are  half- 
battles."  Melanehthon  likens  them  to  thun- 
derbolts. He  was  at  once  a  Peter  and  a  Paul, 
a  Socrates  and  an  ^Esop,  a  Chrysostom  and 
a  Savonarola,  a  Shakespeare  and  a  Whitefield, 
all  condensed  in  one. 

His  Alleged  Coarseness. 
Some   blame  him  for  not  using  kid  gloves 
in    handling    the    ferocious   bulls,    bears,    and 
he-goats  with  whom  he  had  to  do.     But  what, 


124  LU1ITER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

otherwise,  would  have  become  of  the  Reforma- 
tion?    His   age  was  savage,  and  the  men  lie 

had  to  meet  were  savage,  and  the  matters  at 
stake  touched  the  very  life  of  the  world. 
What  would  a  Chesterfield  or  an  Addison 
have  been  in  such  a  contest?  Erasmus  said 
he  had  horns,  and  knew  how  to  use  them, 
but  that  Germany  needed  just  such  a  master. 
He  understood  the  situation.  "  These  gnarled 
logs,"  said  he,  "will  not  split  without  iron 
wedges  and  heavy  malls.  The  air  will  not 
'clear  without  lightning  and  thunder."  * 

But  if  he  was  rough  betimes,  he  could  be 
as  gentle  and  tender  as  a  maiden,  and  true  to 
himself  in  both.  He  could  fight  monsters  all 
day,  and  in  the  evening  take  his  lute,  gaze  at 
the  stars,  sing  psalms,  and  muse  upon  the 
clouds,  the  fields,  the  flowers,  the  birds,  dis- 
solved in  melody  and  devotion.  Feared  by 
the  mighty  of  the  earth,  the  dictator  and  rep- 

*  It  must  be  observed  that  the  coarse  vituperations  which  shock 
the  reader  in  Luther's  controversial  works  were  not  peculiar  to 
him,  being  commonly  used  by  scholars  and  divines  of  the  Middle 
Ages  in  their  disputations.  The  invectives  of  Valla,  Pilelfo, 
Poggio,  and  other  distinguished  scholars  sgainst  each  other  arc 
notorious;  and  this  had  taste  continued  in  practice  long  alter 
Lntlc  r,  down  to  the  seventeenth  century,  and  tract  s  of  ii  are  found 
in  writers  of  the  eighteenth,  even  in  some  of  the  works  of  the 
polished  and  courtly  Voltaire." — Cyclopaedia  qf  8oc.  for  I'iffus  of 
Useful  Knowledge. 


HIS  ALLEGED   COARSENESS.  125 

rimancler  of  kings,  the  children  loved  him,  and 
his  great  heart  was  as  playful  among  them  as 
one  of  themselves.  If  he  was  harsh  and  un- 
sparing upon  hypocrites,  malignants,  and  fools, 
he  called  things  by  their  right  names,  and 
still  was  as  loviug  as  he  was  brave.  Since 
King  David's  lament  over  Absalom  no  more 
tender  or  pathetic  scene  has  appeared  in  his- 
tory or  in  fiction  than  his  outpouring  of  pa- 
ternal love  and  grief  over  the  deathbed,  coffin, 
and  grave  of  his  young  and  precious  daughter 
Madeleine.  "  I  know  of  few  things  more 
touching,"  says  Carlyle,  "  than  those  soft 
breathings  of  affection,  soft  as  a  child's  or  a 
mother's,  in  this  great  wild  heart  of  Luther ;" 
and  adds :  "  I  will  call  this  Luther  a  true 
Great  Man ;  •  great  in  intellect,  in  courage, 
affection,  and  integrity ;  one  of  our  most  lov- 
able and  precious  men.  Great  not  as  a  hewn 
obelisk,  but  as  an  Alpine  mountain,  so  simple, 
honest,  spontaneous ;  not  setting  up  to  be  great 
at  all ;  there  for  quite  another  purpose  than 
being  great.  Ah,  yes,  unsubduable  granite, 
piercing  far  and  wide  into  the  Heavens ;  yet, 
in  the  clefts  of  it,  fountains,  green,  beautiful 
valleys  with  flowers.  A  right  Spiritual  Hero 
and  Prophet ;  once  more,  a  true  Son  of  Nature 
and  Fact,  for  whom  these  centuries,  and  many 


126         LUTHER   AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

that    are   yet   to    come,    will    be    thankful    to 
Heaven." 

His  Marvelous  Achievements. 

A  lone  man,  whose  clays  were  spent  in  pov- 
erty; who  could  withstand  the  mighty  Vatican 
and  all  its  flaming  Bulls;  whose  influence 
evoked  and  swayed  successive  Diets  of  the  em- 
pire ;  whom  repeated  edicts  from  the  Imperial 
throne  could  not  crush;  whom  the  talent, 
eloquence,  and  towering  authority  of  the  Ro- 
man hierarchy  assailed  in  vain;  whom  the  at- 
tacks of  kings  of  state  and  kings  of  literature 
could  not  disable;  to  offset  whose  opinions  the 
greatest  general  council  the  Church  of  Rome 
ever  held  had  to  be  convened,  and,  after  sit- 
ting eighteen  years,  could  not  adjourn  without 
conceding  much  to  his  positions;  and  whose 
name  the  greatest  and  most  enlightened  na- 
tions of  the  earth  hail  with  glad  acclaim, — 
necessarily  must  have  been  a  wonder  of  a 
man.* 

*"  In  no  other  instance  have  such  great  events  depended  upon 
the  courage,  sagacity,  and  energy  of  a  single  man,  who,  by  his  sole 
and  unassisted  efforts,  made  his  solitary  cell  the  heart  and  centre 
of  the  most  wonderful  and  important  commotion  the  world  ever 
witnessed— who  by  the  native  force  and  vigor  of  his  genius  at- 
tacked and  successfully  resistrd,  and  at  length  overthrew,  thi'  uiosL 
awful  and  sacred  authority  that  ever  imposed  its  commands  on 
mankind."— A  letter  prefixed  to  Lather's  TabkrTaik  in  the  folio 
edition  of  l(i">2. 


HIS  IMPRESS   UPON  THE    WORLD.  127 

To  begin  with  a  minority  consisting  of  one, 
and  conquer  kingdoms  with  the  mere  sword  of 
his  month ;  to  bear  the  anathemas  of  Church 
and  the  ban  of  empire,  and  triumph  in  spite 
of  them ;  to  refuse  to  fall  down  before  the 
golden  image  of  the  combined  Nebuchadnezzars 
of  his  time,  though  threatened  with  the  burn- 
ing fires  of  earth  and  hell ;  to  turn  iconoclast 
of  such  magnitude  and  daring  as  to  think  of 
smiting  the  thing  to  pieces  in  the  face  of 
principalities  and  powers  to  whom  it  was  as 
God — nay,  to  attempt  this,  and  to  succeed  in  it, 
— here  was  sublimity  of  heroism  and  achieve- 
ment explainable  only  in  the  will  and  provi- 
dence of  the  Almighty,  set  to  recover  His 
Gospel  to  a  perishing  race.* 

His  Impress  upon  the  Would. 
To    describe    the  fruits    of  Luther's    labors 
would  require  the  writing  of  the  whole  history 
of  modern  civilization  and  the  setting  forth  of 

*  "  To  overturn  a  system  of  religious  belief  founded  on  ancient 
and  deep-rooted  prejudices,  supported  by  power  and  defended 
with  no  less  art  than  industry— to  establish  in  its  room  doctrines 
of  the  most  contrary  genius  and  tendency,  and  to  accomplish  all 
this,  not  by  external  violence  or  the  force  of  arms,  are  operations 
which  historians  the  least  prone  to  credulity  and  superstition 
ascribe  to  that  divine  providence  which  with  infinite  ease  can 
bring  about  events  which  to  human  sagacity  appear  impossible." — 
Robertson's  Charles   V. 


128  LUTHER  AND    THE  REFORMATION. 

the  noblest  characteristics  of  this  our  modern 
world.* 

On  the  German  nation  he  has  left  more  of  his 
impress  than  any  other  man  has  left  on  any  na- 
tion. The  German  people  love  to  speak  of  him 
as  the  creative  master  of  their  noble  language 
and  literature,  the  great  prophet  and  glory  of 
their  country.  There  is  nothing  so  consecrated 
in  all  his  native  land  as  the  places  which  con- 
nect with  his  life,  presence,  and  deeds. 

But  his  mighty  impress  is  not  confined  to 
Germany.  "  He  grasped  the  iron  trumpet  of 
his  mother-tongue  and  blew  a  blast  that  shook 
the  nations  from  Rome  to  the  Orkneys."  He 
is  not  only  the  central  figure  of  Germany, 
but  of  Europe  and  of  the  whole  modern 
world.  Take  Luther  away,  with  the  fruits 
of  his  life  and  deeds,  and  man  to-day  would 
cease  to  be  what  he  is. 

Frederick  von  Schlegel,  though  a  Romanist, 
affirms  that  "it  was  upon  him  and  his  soul 
that  the  fate  of  Europe  depended."     And  on 

■•  From  the  commencement  of"  the  religious  war  in  Germany 
t<>  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  scarce  anything  great  or  memorable 
occurred  in  tic  European  political  world  with  which  the  Reforma- 
tion was  not  essentially  connected.  Every  event  in  the  history  of 
the  world  in  this  interval,  if  not  directly  occasioned,  was  nearly 
affected,  by  this  religious  revolution,  and  every  state,  great  or  small, 
remotely  or  immediately  felt  its  influence." — Schiller's  Thirty 
Years'    War,  vol.  i.  p.  1. 


HIS  131 PRESS   UPON  THE   WOULD.  129 

the  fate  of  Europe  then  depended  the  fate  of 
our  race. 

Michelet,  also  a  Romanist,  pronounces  Luther 
"  the  restorer  of  liberty  in  modern  times ;"  and 
adds :  "  If  we  at  this  day  exercise  in  all  its 
plenitude  the  first  and  highest  privilege  of  hu- 
man intelligence,  it  is  to  him  we  are  indebted 
for  it." 

"And  that  any  faith,"  says  Froude,  "any 
piety,  is  alive  now,  even  in  the  Roman  Church 
itself,  whose  insolent  hypocrisy  he  humbled 
into  shame,  is  due  in  large  measure  to  the  poor 
miner's  son." 

He  certainly  is  to-day  the  most  potently  liv- 
ing man  who  has  lived  this  side  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  jJulsations  of  his  great  heart  are  felt 
through  the  whole  corpus  of  our  civilization. 

"  Four  potentates,"  says  the  late  Dr.  Krauth, 
"ruled  the  mind  of  Europe  in  the  Reforma- 
tion :  the  emperor,  Erasmus,  the  pope,  and 
Luther.  The  pope  wanes ;  Erasmus  is  little ; 
the  emperor  is  nothing ;  but  Luther  abides  as 
a  power  for  all  time.  His  image  casts  itself 
upon  the  current  of  ages  as  the  mountain  mir- 
rors itself  in  the  river  which  winds  at  its  foot. 
He  has  monuments  in  marble  and  bronze,  and 
medals  in  silver  and  gold,  but  his  noblest  mon- 
ument is  the  best  love  of  the  best  hearts,  and 

9 


130         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

• 

the  brightest  and  purest  impression  of  his  im- 
age has  been  left  in  the  souls  of  regenerated 
nations." 

Many  and  glowing  are  the  eulogies  which 
have  been  pronounced  upon  him,  but  Frederick 
von  Schlegel,  speaking  from  the  side  of  Rome, 
gives  it  as  his  conviction  that "  few,  even  of  his 
own  disciples,  appreciate  him  highly  enough." 
Genius,  learning,  eloquence,  and  song  have 
volunteered  their  noble  efforts  to  do  him  jus- 
tice ;  centuries  have  added  their  light  and 
testimony ;  half  the  wrorld  in  its  enthusiasm 
has  urged  on  the  inspiration ;  but  the  story 
in  its  full  dimensions  has  not  yet  been  ade- 
quately told.  The  skill  and  energy  of  other 
generations  will  yet  be  taxed  to  give  it,  if,  in- 
deed, it  ever  can  be  given  apart  from  the  illu- 
minations of  eternity.* 

*  "Luther  was  as  wonderful  as  lie  was  great.  His  personal  ex- 
perience in  divine  things  was  as  deep  as  his  mind  was  mighty, 
large,  and  unbounded.  Though  railed  by  the  Most  High,  and 
continued  by  his  appointment,  in  the  midst  of  papal  darkness, 
idolatry,  and  error,  with  no  companions  hut  the  saints  of  the  Bible, 
nor  any  other  light  but  the  lump  of  the  Word  to  guide  his  feet,  his 
heaven-taught  soul  was  ministerially  furnished  with  as  rich  pasture 
for  the  sheep  of  Christ,  as  awful  ammunition  tor  th.-  terror  and  de- 
struction of  the  enemies  by  which  he  and  tiny  were  perpetually 
surrounded.  The  sphere  of  his  mighty  ministry  was  no!  hounded 
by  his  defence  of  the  truth  against  the  great  ami  powerful.  No! 
He  was  as  rich  a  pastor,  as  terrible  a  warrior.  He  fed  the  sheep 
in  the  fattest   pastures,    while   lie  destroyed   the   wolves  on  every 


HIS  ENEMIES  AND  REVILERS.  131 

His  Enemies  and  Revilers. 
Rome  has  never  forgotten  nor  forgiven  him. 
She  sought  his  life  while  living,  and  she  curses 
him  in  his  grave.  Profited  by  his  labors  be- 
yond what  she  ever  could  have  been  without 
him,  she  strains  and  chokes  with  anathemas 
upon  his  name  and  everything  that  savors  of 
him.  Her  children  are  taught  from  infancy 
to  hate  and  abhor  him  as  they  hope  for  salva- 
tion. Many  are  the  false  turns  and  garbled 
forms  in  which  her  writers  hold  up  his  words 
and  deeds  to  revenge  themselves  on  his  mem- 
ory. Again  and  again  the  oft-answered  and 
exploded  calumnies  are  revived  afresh  to  throw 
dishonor  on  his  cause.  Even  while  the  free 
peoples  of  the  earth  are  making  these  grate- 
ful acknowledgments  of  the  priceless  boon  that 
has  come  to  them  through  his  life  and  labors, 
press  and  platform  hiss  with  stale  vitupera- 
tions from  the  old  enemy.  And  a  puling 
Churchism  outside  of  Rome  takes  an  ill  pleas- 
ure in  following  after  her  to  gather  and  retail 
this  vomit  of  malignity. 

Luther  was  but  a  man.     No  one  claims  that 

side.  Nor  will  those  pastures  be  dried  up  or  lost  until  time,  na- 
tions, and  the  churches  of  God  shall  be  no  more." — Dr.  Cole'n  Pref. 
to  Luther  on  Genesis. 


132         LUTHER  AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

he  was  perfection.  But  if  those  who  sought 
his  destruction  while  he  lived  had  had  no 
greater  faults  than  he,  with  better  grace  their 
modern  representatives  might  indulge  their 
genius  for  his  defamation.  At  best,  as  we 
might  suppose,  it  is  the  little  men,  the  men 
of  narrow  range  and  narrow  heart  —  men 
dwarfed  by  egotism,  bigotry,  and  self-conceit — 
who  see  the  most  of  these  defects.  Nobler 
minds,  contemplating  him  from  loftier  stand- 
points, observe  but  little  of  them,  and  even 
honor  them  above  the  excellencies  of  common 
men.  "  The  proofs  that  he  was  in  some  things 
like  other  men,"  says  Leasing,  "are  to  me  as 
precious  as  the  most  dazzling  of  his  virtues."  * 
And,  with  all,  where  is  the  gain  or  wisdom 
of  blowing  smoke  upon  a  diamond  ?  The  sun 
itself  has  holes  in  it  too  large  for  half  a  dozen 
worlds  like  ours  to  fill,  but  wherein  is  that 
great  luminary  thereby  unfitted  to  be  the 
matchless  centre  of  our  system,  the  glorious 
source  of  day,  and  the  sublime  symbol  of  the 
Son  of  God? 

*  "It  was  by  some  of  these  qualities  which  we  are  now  apt  to 
blame  that  Luther  was  fitted  lor  accomplishing  the  great  work 
which  he  undertook.  To  rouse  mankind  when  sunk  in  ignorance 
and  superstition,  and  to  encounter  the  rage  of  bigotry  armed  with 
power,  required  the  utmost  vehemence  of  zeal  as  well  as  t4Miipe;c 

daring  to  excess." — Robertson's   (Jharlca    V. 


HIS  ENEMIES  AND  REVILERS.  133 

If  Luther  married  a  beautiful  woman,  the 
proofs  of  which  do  not  appear,  it  is  what 
every  other  honest  man  would  do  if  it  suited 
him  and  he  were  free  to  do  it. 

If  he  broke  his  vows  to  get  a  wife,  of  which 
there  is  no  evidence,  when  vows  are  taken  by 
mistake,  tending  to  dishonor  God,  work  un- 
righteousness, and  hinder  virtuous  example 
and  proper  life,  they  ought  to  be  broken,  the 
sooner  the  better. 

And,  whatever  else  may  be  alleged  to  his  dis- 
credit, and  whoever  may  arise  to  heap  scandal 
on  his  name,  the  grand  facts  remain  that  it  was 
chiefly  through  his  marvelous  qualities,  word, 
and  work  that  the  towering  dominion  of  the 
Papacy  was  humbled  and  broken  for  ever; 
that  prophets  and  apostles  were  released  from 
their  prisons  once  more  to  preach  and  prophesy 
to  men  ;  that  the  Church  of  the  early  times 
was  restored  to  the  bereaved  world ;  that  the 
human  mind  was  set  free  to  read  and  follow 
God's  Word  for  itself;  that  the  masses  of 
neglected  and  downtrodden  humanity  were 
made  into  populations  of  live  and  thinking 
beings ;  and  that  the  nations  of  the  earth 
have  become  repossessed  of  their  "  inalienable 
rights "  of  "  life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness." 


134  LUTHER   AND   THE  REFORMATION. 

"And  let  the  pope  and  priests  their  victor  scorn, 
Each  fault  reveal,  each  imperfection  scan, 
And  hy  their  fell  anatomy  of  hate 
His  life  dissect  with  satire's  keenest  edge; 
Yel  still  may  Luther,  with  hie  mighty  heart, 
Defy  their  malice. 

Far  beyond  than  soars  the  soul 
They  slander.     From  his  tomb  there  still  comes  forth 
A  magic  which  appalls  them  by  its  power; 
And  the  brave  monk  who  made  the  Popedom  rock 
Champions  a  world  to  show  his  eqnal  yet !'' 


THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 


I 


I.  THE   HISTORY   AND   THE   MEN. 

T  was  in  1492,  just  nine  years  after  Lu- 
ther's birth,  that  the  intrepid  Genoese, 
Christopher  Columbus,  under  the  patronage 
of  Ferdinand,  king  of  Spain,  made  the  dis- 
covery of  land  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic 
Ocean.  A  few  years  later  the  distinguished 
Florentine,  Americus  Vespucius,  set  foot  on 
its  more  interior  coasts,  described  their  fea- 
tures, and  imprinted  his  name  on  this  West- 
ern Continent.  But  it  was  not  until  more 
than  a  century  later  that  permanent  settle- 
ments of  civilized  people  upon  these  shores 
began  to  be  made. 

During  the  early  part  of  the  seventeenth 
century  several  such  settlements  were  effected. 
A  company  of  English  adventurers  planted 
themselves  on  the  banks  of  the  James  Eiver 
and  founded  Virginia  (1607).     The  Dutch  of 

137 


138        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Holland,  impelled  by  the  spirit  of  mercantile 
enterprise,  established  a  colony  on  the  Hudson, 
and  founded  what  afterward  became  the  city 
and  State  of  New  York  (1614).  Then  a  ship- 
load of  English  Puritans,  Hying  from  religious 
oppression,  landed  at  Plymouth  Rock  and  made 
the  beginning  of  New  England  (1020).  A  lit- 
tle later  Lord  Baltimore  founded  a  colony  on 
the  Chesapeake  and  commenced  the  State  of 
Maryland  (1633).  But  it  was  not  until  1637- 
38  that  the  first  permanent  settlement  was  made 
In  what  subsequently  became  the  State  of  Penn- 
sylvania. 

Movements  in  Sweden. 

From  the  year  1611  to  1632  there  was  upon 

the  throne  of  Sweden  one  of  the  noblest  of 

kings,  a  great  champion  of   religious  liberty, 

the  lamented  and  ever-to-be-remembered  Gus- 

TAVUS  ADOLPHUS. 

In  his  profound  thinking  to  promote  the 
glory  of  God  and  the  good  of  men  his  at- 
tention rested  on  this  vast  domain  of  wild 
lands  in  America.  He  knew  the  sorrows  and 
distresses  which  thousands  all  over  Europe 
were  suffering  from  the  constant  and  devas- 
tating religious  wars,  and  the  purpose  was 
kindled    in    his   heart    to   plant  here  ;1   rolony 


MOVEMENTS  TN  SWEDEN.  139 

as  the  beginning  of  a  general  asylum  for  these 
homeless  and  persecuted  people,  and  deter- 
mined to  foster  the  same  by  his  royal  pro- 
tection and  care. 

"  To  this  end  he  sent  forth  letters  patent, 
dated  Stockholm,  2d  of  July,  1G26,  wherein 
all,  both  high  and  low,  were  invited  to  con- 
tribute something  to  the  company  according  to 
their  means.  The  work  was  completed  in  the 
Diet  of  the  following  year  (1627),  when  the 
estates  of  the  realm  gave  their  assent  and 
confirmed  the  measure.  Those  who  took 
part  in  this  company  were :  His  Majesty's 
mother,  the  queen-dowager  Christina,  the 
Prince  John  Casimir,  the  Royal  Council, 
the  most  distinguished  of  the  nobility,  the 
highest  officers  of  the  army,  the  bishops  and 
other  clergymen,  together  with  the  burgo- 
masters and  aldermen  of  the  cities,  as  well 
as  a  large  number  of  the  peoj:>le  generally. 
For  the  management  and  working  of  the 
plan  there  were  appointed  an  admiral,  vice- 
admiral,  chapman,  under-chapman,  assistants, 
and  commissaries,  also  a  body  of  soldiers  duly 
officered."*  And  a  more  beneficent,  brilliant, 
and  promising  arrangement  of  the  sort  was  per- 
haps never  made.     The  devout  king  intended 

*Acrelius's  History,  p.  21. 


140        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

his  grand  scheme  "  for  the  honor  of  God,"  for 
the  welfare  of  his  subjects  and  suffering  Chris- 
tians in  general,  and  as  a  means  "to  extend  the 
doctrines  of  Christ  among  the  heathen." 

But  when  everything  was  complete  and  in 
full  progress  to  go  into  effect,  King  Gustavus 
Adoljmus  wras  called  to  join  and  lead  the 
allied  armies  of  the  Protestant  kingdoms  of 
Germany  against  the  endeavors  of  the  papal 
powers  to  crush  out  the  cause  of  evangelical 
Christianitv  and  free  conscience.* 

*"When  lie  now  beheld  that  the  cause  of  Protestantism  was 
menaced  more  seriously  than  ever  throughout  the  whole  of  Ger- 
many, he  took  the  decisive  step,  and,  formally  declaring  war 
against  the  emperor,  he,  on  the  24th  of  June,  1G30,  landed  on 
the  coast  of  Pomerania  with  fifteen  thousand  Swedes.  As  soon  as 
he  stepped  upon  shore  lie  dropped  on  his  knees  in  prayer,  while 
his  example  was  followed  by  his  whole  army.  Truly  he  had  un- 
dertaken, with  but  small  and  limited  means,  a  great  and  mighty 
enterprise."  "The  S wed es,  so  steady  and  strict  in  their  discipline, 
appeared  as  protecting  angels,  and  as  the  king  advanced  the  belief 
spread  far  and  near  throughout  the  land  that  he  was  sent  from 
heaven  as  its  preserver."—  History  of  Germany,  by  Kohlrausch, 
pp.  328,  329. 

"Bavaria  and  the  Tyrol  excepted,  every  province  throughout 
Germany  had  battled  for  liberty  of  conscience,,  and  yet  the  whole 
of  Germany,  notwithstanding  her  universal  inclination  for  the  Ref- 
ormation, had  been  deceived  in  her  hopes:  a  second  Imperial  edict 
seemed  likely  to  crush  the  tew  remaining  privileges  spared  by  the 
edicl  of  restitution.  .  .  .  Gustavus,  urged  by  his  sincere  piety,  re- 
solved to  take  up  arms  in  defence  of  Protestantism  and  to  free  Ger- 
many from  the  yoke  imposed  by  the  Jesuits. " — Men/.el's  History 
of  Germany,  vol.  ii.  pp.  345,  340. 

"The  partj-  of  the  Catholics  were  carrying  all  before  them,  and 


MOVEMENTS  IN  SWEDEN.  141 

For  the  ensuing  five  years  the  attention  and 
energies  of  Sweden  were  preoccupied,  first  with 
the  Polish,  and  then  with  these  wars,  and  the 
colonization  scheme  was  interrupted. 

Then  came  the  famous  battle  of  Liitzen, 
1632,  bringing  glorious  victory  over  the  gi- 
gantic Wallenstein,  but  death  to  the  victor, 
the  royal  Adolphus.* 

everything  seemed  to  promise  that  Ferdinand  (the  Homan  Catho- 
lic emperor)  would  become  absolute  through  the  whole  of  Germany, 
and  succeed  in  that  scheme  which  he  seemed  to  meditate,  of  en- 
tirely abolishing  the  Protestant  religion  in  the  empire.  But  this 
miserable  prospect,  both  of  political  and  religious  thraldom,  Was 
dissolved  by  the  great  Gustavus  Adolphus  being  invited  by  the 
Protestant  princes  of  Germany  to  espouse  the  cause  of  the  Re- 
fo  -med  religion,  being  himself  of  that  persuasion."— Tytler's 
Univ.  Hist.,  Vol.  ii.  p.  451. 

*  The  death  of  Gilstaviis  Adolphus  is  thus  described  by  Rohl- 
rausch  :  "The  king  spent  the  cold  autumnal  night  in  his  carriage, 
and  advised  with  his  generals  about  the  battle*  The  morning 
dawned,  and  a  thick  fog  covered  the  entire  plain  ;  the  troops  were 
drawn  up  in  battle-array,  and  the  Swedes  sang,  accompanied  with 
trumpets  and  drums,  Luther's  hymn,  Einfeste  Burg  ist  unset  Gott 
('A  mighty  fortress  is  our  God'),  together  with  the  hymn  com- 
posed by  the  king  himself,  Ver%agt  nicht,  du  Haufiein  kle in  ('Fear 
not  the  foe,  thou  little  flock').  Just  after  eleven  o'clock,  when  the 
sun  was  emerging  from  behind  the  clouds,  and  after  a  short  prayer, 
the  king  mounted  his  horse,  placed  himself  at  the  head  of  the 
right  wing — the  left  being  commanded  by  Bernard  of  Weimar — 
and  cried,  '  Now,  onward  !  May  our  God  direct  us  !— Lord,  Lord  ! 
help  me  this  day  to  fight  for  the  glory  of  thy  name!'  and,  throw- 
ing away  his  cuirass  with  the  words,  'God  is  my  shield!'  he  led 
his  troops  to  the  front  of  the  Imperialists,  who  were  well  entrench- 
ed on  the  paved  road  which  leads  from  Liitzen  to  Leipsic,  and 
stationed  in  the  deep  trenches  on  either  side.     A  deadly  cf.tmonade 


142        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Only  a  few  days  before  that  dreadful  battle 
he  spoke  of  his  colonization  plan,  and  com- 
mended it  to  the  German  people  at  Nuremberg 
as  "the  jewel  of  his  kingdom;"  but  with  the 
king's  death  the  company  disbanded. 

We  could  almost  wish  that  Gustavus  had 
lived  to  carry  out  his  humane  and  magnificent 
proposals  with  reference  to  this  colony  as  well 
as  for  Europe ;  but  his  work  was  done.  What 
America  lost  by  his  death  she  more  than 
regained  in  the  final  success  and  secure  estab- 
lishment of  the  holy  cause  for  which  he  sacri- 
ficed his  life. 

saluted  the  Swedes,  and  many  here  met  their  deatli ;  but  their 
places  were  filled  by  others,  who  leaped  over  the  trench,  and  the 
troops  of  Wallenstein  retreated. 

"  In  the  mean  time,  Pappenheim  came  up  with  his  cavalry  from 
Halle,  and  the  battle  was  renewed  with  the  utmost  fury.  The  Swe- 
dish infantry  fled  behind  the  trenches.  To  assist  them,  the  king  hast- 
ened to  the  spot  with  a  company  of  horse,  and  rode  in  full  speed  con- 
siderably in  advance  to  descry  the  weak  points  of  the  enemy  ;  only  a 
few  of  his  attendants,  and  Francis,  duke  o(  Saxe-Lauenberg, 
with  him.  His  short-sightedness  led  him  too  near  a  squadron  of 
Imperial  horse;  he  received  a  shot  in  his  arm,  which  nearly  pre- 
cipitated him  to  the  ground;  and  just  as  he  was  turning  to  be  led 
away  from  the  tumultuous  scene  he  received  a  second  shot  in  the 
hack.  With  the  exclamation,  'My  God  i  my  GrodT  lie  fell  from 
his  horse,  which  also  was  shot  in  the  neck,  and  was  dragged  for 
some  distance,  banging  by  the  stirrup.  The  duke  abandoned  him, 
but  his  faithful  page  tried  to  raise  him,  when  the  Imperial  horse- 
men shot  him  also,  killed  the  king,  and  completely  plundered 
him."  Pappenheim  was  also  mortally  wounded,  Wallenstein 
retreated,  and  the  victory  was  With  the  Swedes,  hut  their  noble 
kiii'r  was  no  more. 


THE  SWEDISH  PROPOSAL.  143 

The  Swedish  Proposal. 
The    plan    of  this    illustrious   king  was   to 
found    here  upon   the   Delaware   a  free   state 
under    his    sovereign    protection,    where    the 
laborer   should    enjoy    the    fruit    of    his   toil, 
where    the    rights    of    conscience    should    be 
preserved    inviolate,    and    which    should    be 
open    to    the   whole    Protestant    world,    then 
and  for  long  time  engaged  in  bloody  conflict 
with  the   papal    powers  for    the    maintenance 
of  its  existence.     Here  all  were  to  be  secure 
in    their    persons,    their    property,    and   their 
religious   convictions.     It  was   to    be   a  place 
of  refuge  and  peace  for  the  persecuted  of  all 
nations,    of    security    for    the    honor    of    the 
wives    and    daughters    of    those   fleeing    from 
sword,  fire,  and  rapine,  and  from  homes  made 
desolate   by  oppressive   war.     It  was   to  be  a 
land   of  universal  liberty  for  all   classes,  the 
soil  of  which  was  never  to  be  burdened  with 
slaves*     And  in  all  the  colonies  of  America 
there   was    not    a   more   thoroughly    digested 

*  The  description  of  the  features  of  this  plan  is  taken  from 
Geijer's  Svenska  Folkets  Historic:,  vol.  iii.  p.  128,  given  by  Dr. 
Reynolds  in  his  Introduction  to  Israel  Acrelius's  History  of  New 
Sweden,  published  by  the  Historical  Society  of  Pennsylvania.  It 
was  first  propounded  by  Gustavus  Adolphus  in  1624.  Also 
referred  to  in  Argonautiea  Guataviana,  pp.  3  and  22. 


144        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

system  for  the  practical  realization  of  these  ideas 
than  that  which  the  great  Gustavus  Adolphus 
had  thus  arranged. 

Nor  did  it  altogether  die  with  his  death. 
His  mantle  fell  upon  one  of  the  best  and 
greatest  of  men.  Axel  Oxenstiern,  his  friend 
and  prime  minister,  and  his  successor  in  the 
administration  of  the  affairs  of  the  kingdom, 
was  as  competent  as  he  was  zealous  to  fulfill 
the  wise  plans  and  ideas  of  the  slain  king,  not 
only  with  reference  to  Sweden  and  Europe, 
'but  also  with  regard  to  the  contemplated  col- 
ony in  America. 

Having  taken  the  matter  into  his  own  hands, 
on  the  10th  of  April,  1633,  only  a  few  months 
after  Gustavus's  death,  Oxenstiern  renewed 
the  movement  which  had  been  laid  aside,  and 
repeated  the  offer  to  Germany  and  other  coun- 
tries, inviting  general  co-operation  in  the 
noble  enterprise. 

Peter  Minuit,  a  member  of  a  distinguished 
family  of  Rhenish  Prussia,  who  had  been  for 
years  the  able  director  and  president  of  the 
Dutch  mercantile  establishment  on  the  Hud- 
son, presented  himself  in  Sweden,  and  entered 
into  the  matter  with  great  energy  and  enthu- 
siasm. And  by  the  end  of  1<'>;;7  or  early  in 
1638  two  ships  were  seen  entering  and  ascend- 


WAS  PENN  AWARE   OF  THESE  PLANS?     145 

ing  the  Delaware,  freighted  with  the  elements 
and  nucleus  of  the  new  state,  such  a^  Gustavus 
had  projected. 

These  ships,  under  Minuit,  landed  their  pas- 
sengers but  a  few  miles  south  of  where  Phila- 
delphia now  stands,  and  thus  made  the  first 
beginning  of  what  has  since  become  the  great 
and  happy  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania. 

This  was  six  years  before  Penn  was  born. 

Was  Penn  Aware  of  these  Plans? 

How  far  William  Penn  was  illuminated 
and  influenced  by  the  ideas  of  the  great  and 
wise  Gustavus  Adolphus  in  reference  to  the 
founding  of  a  free  state  in  America  as  an 
asylum  for  the  persecuted  and  suffering  peo- 
ple of  God  in  the  Old  World,  is  nowhere  told ; 
but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  he  knew  of 
them,  and  took  his  own  plans  from  them. 

A  few  facts  bearing  on  the  point  may  here 
be  noted. 

One  peculiarly  striking  is,  that  the  same 
plan  and  principles  with  reference  to  such 
a  colonial  state  which  Penn  brought  hither 
in  the  Welcome  in  1682  were  already  matured 
and  widely  propounded  by  the  illustrious 
Swedish  king  more  than  half  a  century  before 
they  practically  entered  Penn's  mind. 
10 


146        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Another  is,  that  these  proposals  and  prin- 
ciples were  generally  promulgated  throughout 
Europe — first  by  Gustavus  and  those  associated 
with  him  in  the  matter,  and  then  again  by 
Oxenstiern,  in  Germany,  Holland,  and  other 
countries. 

Still  another  is,  that  in  1677  Penn  made 
a  special  tour  of  three  months  through  Hol- 
land and  various  parts  of  Germany,  visiting 
and  conferring  with  many  of  the  most  pious 
and  devoted  people,  including  distinguished 
men  and  women,  and  clergy  and  laity  of  high 
standing,  information,  and  influence.  He  made 
considerable  stay  in  Frankfort,  where  he  says 
both  Calvinists  and  Lutherans  received  him 
with  gladness  of  heart.  He  visited  May- 
ence,  Worms,  Mannheim,  Mulheim,  Diissel- 
dorf,  Herwerden,  Embaden,  Bremen,  etc.,  etc., 
concerning  which  the  editor  of  his  Life  and 
Writings  says  he  had  "  interesting  interviews 
with  many  persons  eminent  for  their  talents, 
learning,  or  social  position. "  Among  them 
were  such  as  Elizabeth,  Princess  Palatine, 
niece  of  Charles  I.  of  England  and  the 
daughter  of  the  king  of  Bohemia,  the  special 
friend  of  Gustavus  Adolphus,  who  dwd  of 
horror  on  hearing  that  Gustavus  was  slain ; 
Anna  Maria,  countess  of  Homes ;  the  countess 


THE  SWEDES  IN  ADVANCE   OF  PENN.      147 

and  earl  of  Falkenstein  and  Briick ;  the 
president  of  the  council  of  state  at  Embaden ; 
the  earl  of  Donau,  and  the  like ;  among  all 
of  which  it  is  hardly  possible  that  he  should 
have  failed  to  meet  with  the  proposals  which 
had  gone  out  over  all  Protestant  Europe  from 
the  throne  of  Sweden.  Nor  is  there  any 
evidence  that  William  Penn  had  thought  of 
founding  a  free  Christian  state  in  America 
until  immediately  after  his  return  to  England 
from  this  tour  on  the  Continent. 

Furthermore,  the  plans  of  Gustavus  respect- 
ing his  projected  colony  on  the  Delaware  were 
well  understood  in  official  circles  in  England 
itself,  especially  in  London,  from  1634.  John 
Oxenstiern,  brother  of  the  great  chancellor, 
was  at  that  time  Swedish  ambassador  in  Lon- 
don, and  in  that  year  he  obtained  from  King 
Charles  I.  a  renunciation  and  cession  to  Swe- 
den of  all  claims  of  the  English  to  the  country 
on  the  Delaware  growing  out  of  the  rights  of 
first  discovery,  and  for  the  very  purposes  of 
this  colonial  free  state  and  asylum  first  pro- 
jected by  the  Swedish  king. 

The  Swedes  in  Advance  of  Penn. 
We  are  left  to  our  own  inferences  from  these 
facts,     But,  however  much  or  little  Penn  may 


148        THE  FOUNDING    OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

have  been  directly  influenced  and  guided  by 
what  Gustavus  Adolphus  had  conceived  and 
elaborated  on  the  subject,  the  wise  and  noble 
conception  which  he  brought  with  him  for 
practical  realization  in  1682  was  known  to  the 
European  peoples  for  more  than  fifty  years  be- 
fore he  laid  hold  on  it.  The  same  had  also 
been  one  of  the  chief  sources  of  the  inspiration 
of  Lord  Baltimore  in  the  founding  of  the  col- 
ony of  Maryland,  of  which  Penn  was  not  igno- 
rant. And  the  same,  not  unknown  to  him, 
had  already  begun  to  be  realized  here  in  what 
is  now  called  Pennsylvania  full  forty-four 
years  before  his  arrival. 

Shipload  after  shipload  of  sturdy  and  de- 
voted people,  mostly  Swedes,  animated  with 
the  same  grand  ideas,  had  here  been  landed. 
And  so  successfully  had  they  battled  with  the 
perils  and  hardships  of  the  wilderness,  and  so 
justly  had  they  treated  and  arranged  to  dwell  in 
peace  and  love  with  the  wild  inhabitants  of  the 
forests,  that  when  Penn  came  he  found  every- 
thing prepared  to  his  hand.  The  Swedes  alone 
already  numbered  about  one  thousand  strong. 
They  had  conquered  the  wild  woods,  built  them 
homes,  and  opened  plantations;  and  "the  eye 
of  the  stranger  could  begin  to  gaze  with  in- 
terest upon  the  signs  of  public  improvement, 


THE  SWEDES  IN  ADVANCE  OF  PENN      149 

ever  regularly  advancing,  from  the  region  of 
Wilmington  to  that  of  Philadelphia." 

When  Penn  landed  he  found  a  town  and 
court-house  at  New  Castle,  and  a  town  and 
place  of  public  assemblage  at  Upland,  and  a 
Christian  and  free  j3eople  in  possession  of  the 
territory,  with  whom  it  was  necessary  for  him 
to  treat  before  his  charter  could  avail  for  the 
planting  of  his  colony.  The  land  to  which 
the  Swedes  had  acquired  title  (by  England's 
release  to  Sweden  of  all  claim  from  right  of 
discovery,  by  charter  from  Sweden,  by  pur- 
chase from  the  Indians,  first  under  Minuit,  the 
first  governor,  and  then  under  his  successor, 
Governor  Printz,  and  by  other  purchases  or 
agreements)  was  the  west  bank  of  the  Delaware 
River  from  Cape  Henlopen  to  Trenton  Falls, 
and  thence  westward  to  the  great  fall  in  the 
Susquehanna,  near  the  mouth  of  the  Conewaga 
Creek,  which  included  nearly  the  whole  of 
Eastern  Pennsylvania  and  Delaware. 

The  fortunes  of  war,  in  Europe  and  between 
the  colonies,  in  course  of  time  complicated  the 
titles  to  one  and  another  portion  of  this  terri- 
tory, but  the  Swedes  and  Dutch  occupied  and 
held  the  most  prominent  parts  of  it  by  right  of 
actual  possession  when  and  after  Penn's  charter 
was  granted. 


150     the  founding  of  pennsylvania. 

Penn's  Charter  and  Arrival. 

But  when  Perm  arrived  he  brought  with  him 
letters  patent  from  Charles  II.,  king  of  Eng- 
land, to  this  same  district  of  country  and  the 
wilds  indefinitely  beyond  it,  having  also  ob- 
tained from  his  friend,  the  king's  brother,  the 
duke  of  York,  full  releases  of  the  claims  vested 
in  him  to  the  "  Lower  Counties,"  which  now 
form  the  State  of  Delaware. 

Penn  was  accompanied  by  from  sixty  to  sev- 
enty colonists — all  that  survived  the  scourge 
which  visited  them  in  their  passage  across  the 
sea.  He  landed  first  at  New  Castle,  of  which 
the  Dutch  of  New  York  had  by  conquest  ob- 
tained possession.  To  them  he  made  known 
his  grants  and  his  plans,  and  succeeded  in 
securing  their  acquiescence  in  them. 

Thence  he  came  to  Upland  (Chester),  the 
head-quarters  of  the  Swedes,  who  "  received 
their  new  fellow-citizens  with  great  friendliness, 
carried  up  their  goods  and  furniture  from  the 
ships,  and  entertained  them  in  their  own  houses 
without  charge."  His  proposals  with  regard  to 
the  establishment  of  a  united  commonwealth 
they  also  received  with  much  favor.  And  im- 
mediately thereupon  he  convened  a  general 
assembly  of  the  citizens,  which   sat   for  three 


THE  MEN  OF  THOSE  TIMES.  151 

days,  by  which  an  act  was  passed  for  the  con- 
solidation of  the  various  interests  and  parties 
on  the  ground,  a  code  of  general  regulations 
adopted,  and  the  necessary  features  of  a  com- 
mon government  enacted;  all  of  which  together 
formed  the  basis  of  our  present  commonwealth. 

How  Pennsylvania  was  Named. 
The  name  which  Penn  had  chosen  for  the 
territory  of  his  grant  was  Sylvania,  but  the 
king  prefixed  the  name  of  Penn  and  called  it 
Perm's  Silvania  (Pemis  Woods),  in  honor  of 
the  recipient's  father,  Sir  William  Penn,  a  dis- 
tinguished officer  in  the  British  navy.     Penn 
sought  to  have  the  title  changed  so  as  to  leave 
his  own  name  out,  as  he  thought  it  savored  too 
much  of  personal  vanity ;    but  his  efforts  did 
not  avail.     And  thus  our  great  old  common- 
wealth took  the  name  of  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
city  of  Philadelphia  was  laid  out  and  named 
by  Penn  himself  as  its  capital. 

The  Men  of  those  Times. 
In  dwelling  upon  the  foundmg  of  our  hap- 
py commonwealth  it  is  pleasant  to  contemplate 
how  enlightened  and  exalted  were  the  men 
whom  Providence  employed  for  the  perform- 
ance of  this  important  work. 


152       THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Many  are  apt  to  think  ours  the  age  of  cul- 
minated enlightenment,  dignity,  wisdom,  and 
intelligence,  and  look  upon  the  fathers  of  two 
and  three  hundred  years  ago  as  mere  pigmies, 
just  emerging  from  an  era  of  barbarism  and 
ignorance,  not  at  all  to  be  compared  with  the 
proud  wiseacres  of  our  day.  Never  was  there 
a  greater  mistake.  The  shallowness  and  flip- 
pancy of  the  leaders  and  politicians  of  this  last 
quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  show  them 
but  little  more  than  school-boys  compared 
.with  the  sturdy,  sober-minded,  deep-principled, 
dignified,  and  grand-spirited  men  who  discov- 
ered and  opened  this  continent  and  laid  the 
foundations  of  our  country's  greatness.  And 
those  who  were  most  concerned  in  the  found- 
ing of  our  own  commonwealth  suffer  in  no  re- 
spect  in  comparison  with  the  greatest  and  the 
best. 

GUSTAVTJS    ADOLPHUS. 

I  have  named  the  illustrious  Gustavus 
Adolphus  as  the  man,  above  all,  who  first 
conceived,  sketched,  and  propounded  the  grand 
idea  of  such  a  state.  What  other  colonies 
reached  only  through  varied  experiments  and 
gradual  developments,  Pennsylvania  had  clear 
and  mature,  in  ideal  and  in  fact,  from  the  very 


OUSTAVUS  ADOLPHUS.  153 

earliest  beginning;  and  the  royal  heart  and 
brain  of  Sweden  were  its  source. 

Gustavus  Adolphus  was  born  a  prince  in  the 
regular  line  of  Sweden's  ancient  kings.  His 
grandfather,  Gustavus  Vasa,  was  a  man  of 
thorough  culture,  excellent  ability,  and  sterling 
moral  qualities.  When  in  Germany  he  was 
an  earnest  listener  to  Luther's  preaching,  be- 
came his  friend  and  correspondent,  a  devout 
confessor  and  patron  of  the  evangelic  faith,  and 
the  wise  establisher  of  the  Reformation  in  his 
kingdom. 

Adolphus  inherited  all  his  grandfather's 
high  qualities.  He  was  the  idol  of  his  father, 
Charles  IX.,  and  was  devoutly  trained  from 
earliest  childhood  in  the  evangelic  faith,  edu- 
cated in  thorough  princely  style,  familiarized 
with  governmental  affairs  from  the  time  he 
was  a  boy,  and  developed  into  an  exemplary, 
wise,  brave,  and  devoted  Christian  man  and 
illustrious  king. 

He  ascended  the  throne  when  but  seventeen 
years  of  age,  extricated  his  country  from  many 
internal  and  external  troubles,  organized  for  it 
a  new  system,  and  became  the  hero-sovereign 
of  his  age.  He  was  one  of  the  greatest  of  men, 
in  cabinet  and  in  field  as  well  as  in  faith  and 
humble    devotion.      He    was    a   broad-minded 


154        THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

statesman  and  patriot,  one  of  the  most  beloved 
of  rulers,  and  a  philanthropist  of  the  purest 
order  and  most  comprehensive  views.  That 
evangelical  Christianity  which  Luther  and  his 
coadjutors  exhumed  from  the  superincumbent 
rubbish  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  dearer  to  him 
than  his  throne  or  his  life.  The  pure  Gospel 
of  Christ  was  to  him  the  most  precious  of 
human  possessions.  For  it  he  lived,  and  for  it 
he  died.  One  of  his  deep-souled  hymns,  sung 
along  with  Luther's  JEln  Feste  Burg  at  the 
head  of  his  armies  in  his  campaigns  for  Chris- 
tian liberty,  has  its  place  in  our  Church-Book 
to-day.  And  the  bright  peculiar  star  which 
appeared  in  the  heavens  at  the  time  he  was 
born  fitly  heralded  his  royal  career. 

Cut  off  in  the  midst  of  a  succession  of  victo- 
ries in  the  thirty-eighth  year  of  his  age,  the 
influence  of  his  mind  nevertheless  served  to 
give  another  constitution  to  the  Germanic  peo- 
ples, established  the  right  and  power  of  evan- 
gelical Christianity  to  be  and  to  be  unmolested 
on  the  earth,  and  confirmed  a  new  element  in 
the  development  and  progress  of  the  European 
races  and  of  mankind.  With  the  loftiest  con- 
ceptions of  human  Life,  a  thorough  acquaintance 
with  the  agencies  which  govern  the  world,  a 
mind  in  all  respects  in  thorough  subjection  to 


AXEL   OXENSTIRRN.  155 

an  enlightened  Christian  conscience,  a  magna- 
nimity and  liberality  of  sentiment  far  in  ad- 
vance of  his  age,  and  an  untarnished  devotion 
which  marked  his  history  to  its  very  end,  his 
name  stands  at  the  head  of  the  list  of  illustri- 
ous Christian  kings  and  human  benefactors.* 

Axel  Oxexstiern. 
Axel  Oxenstiern,  his  friend,  companion, 
and  prime  minister,  was  of  like  mind  and 
character  with  himself.  He  was  high-born, 
religiously  trained,  and  thoroughly  educated 
in  both  theology  and  law  in  the  best  schools 
which  the  world  then  afforded.  He  was 
Sweden's  greatest  and  wisest  counselor  and 
diplomatist,  liberal-minded,  true-hearted,  dig- 
nified, and  devout.     In  religion,  in  patriotism, 

*  Count  Galeazzo  Gualdo,  a  Venetian  Roman  Catholic,  who 
spent  some  years  in  both  the  Imperial  and  the  Swedish  armies, 
says  of  Gustavus  Adolphus  that  "  he  was  tall,  stout,  and  of  such 
truly  royal  demeanor  that  he  universal ly  commanded  veneration, 
admiration,  love,  and  fear.  His  hair  and  beard  were  of  a  light- 
brown  color,  his  eye  large,  but  not  far-sighted.  Eloquence  dwelt 
upon  his  tongue.  He  spoke  German,  the  native  language  of  his 
mother,  the  Swedish,  the  Latin,  the  French,  and  the  Italian  lan- 
guages, and  his  discourse  was  agreeable  and  lively.  There  never 
was  a  general  served  with  so  much  cheerfulness  and  devotion  as 
he.  He  was  of  an  affable  and  friendly  disposition,  readily  express- 
ing commendation,  and  noble  actions  were  indelibly  fixed  upon  his 
memory;  on  the  other  hand,  excessive  politeness  and  flattery  he 
hated,  and  if  any  person  approached  him  in  that  way  he  never 
trusted  him." 


156         THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

in  earnest  doing  for  the  ]~>rofoundest  interests 
of  man,  he  was  one  with  his  illustrious  king. 
He  negotiated  the  Peace  of  Kmered  with  Den- 
mark, the  Peace  of  Stolbowa  with  Russia,  and 
the  armistice  with  Poland.  He  accompanied 
his  king  in  the  campaigns  in  Germany,  having 
charge  of  all  diplomatic  affairs  and  the  devis- 
ing of  ways  and  means  for  the  support  of  the 
army  in  the  field,  whilst  the  king  commanded 
it.  He  won  no  victories  of  war,  but  he  was  a 
choice  spirit  in  creating  the  means  by  which 
some  of  the  most  valuable  of  such  victories 
were  achieved,  and  conducted  those  victories 
to  permanent  peace. 

When  Gustavus  Adolphus  fell  at  Liitzen  a 
sacrifice  to  religious  liberty,  the  whole  admin- 
istration of  the  kingdom  was  placed  in  Oxen- 
stiern's  hands.  The  congress  of  foreign 
princes  at  Heilbronn  elected  him  to  the  head- 
ship of  their  league  against  the  papal  power 
of  Austria ;  and  it  was  his  wisdom  and  hero- 
ism alone  which  held  the  league  together  unto 
final  triumph.  Bauer,  Torstensson,  and  Von 
Wrangle  were  the  flaming  swords  which  final- 
ly overwhelmed  that  power,  but  the  brain 
which  brought  the  fearful  Thirty  Years1  War 
to  a  final  close,  and  established  the  evangeli- 
cal   cause    upon    its    lasting    basis   of    security 


PETER  MINUIT.  157 

by  the  Peace  of  Westphalia  (1648),  was  that 
of  Axel  Oxenstiern,  the  very  man  who  sent 
to  Pennsylvania  its  original  colonists  as  the 
founders  of  a  free  state. 

Petek  Minuit. 
A  kindred  spirit  was  Petek  Minuit,  the 
man  whom  Oxenstiern  selected  and  commis- 
sioned to  accompany  these  first  colonists  to 
the  west  bank  of  the  Delaware,  and  to  act 
as  their  president  and  governor.  He  too  was 
a  high-born,  cultured,  large-minded  Christian 
man.  He  was  an  honored  deacon  in  the 
Walloon  church  at  Wesel.  Removing  to 
Holland,  his  high  qualities  led  to  his  selec- 
tion by  the  Dutch  West  India  Company  as 
the  fittest  man  to  be  the  first  governor  and 
director-general  of  the  Dutch  colonies  on  the 
Hudson.  His  great  efficiency  and  public 
success  in  that  capacity  made  him  the  subject 
of  jealousies  and  accusations,  resulting  in  his 
recall  after  five  or  six  years  of  the  most  effect- 
ive administration  of  the  affairs  of  those  colo- 
nies. Oxenstiern  had  the  breadth  and  pene- 
tration to  understand  his  real  worth,  and  ap- 
pointed him  the  first  governor  of  the  New 
Sweden  which  since  has  become  the  great 
State  of  Pennsylvania.      He  lived  less  than 


158        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

five  years  in  this  new  position,  and  died  in 
Fort  Christina,  which  he  built  and  held  dur- 
ing his  last  years  of  service  on  earth.  He 
was  a  wise,  laborious,  and  far-seeing  man, 
consecrated  with  all  his  powers  to  the  for- 
mation of  a  free  commonwealth  on  this  then 
wild  territory.  His  name  has  largely  sunk 
away  from  public  attention,  as  the  work  of 
the  Swedes  in  general  in  the  founding  and 
fashioning  of  our  commonwealth ;  but  he 
and  they  deserve  far  better  than  has  been 
awarded  them. 

A  few  years  ago  (1876)  some  movement 
was  for  the  first  time  made  to  erect  a  suitable 
monument  to  the  memory  of  Minuit.  Surely 
the  founder  of  the  greatest  city  in  this  Western 
World,  and  of  the  colonial  possessions  of  two 
European  nations,  and  the  first  president  and 
governor  of  the  two  greatest  States  in  the 
American  Union,  ranks  among  the  great  his- 
toric personages  of  his  period;  and  his  high 
qualities,  noble  spirit,  and  valuable  services 
demand  for  him  a  grateful  recognition  which 
has  been  far  too  slow  in  coming.  There  is  a 
debt  owing  to  his  name  and  memory  which 
New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  Americas 
people  have  not  yet  duly  discharged. 

And  to  these  grand  men,  first  of   all,  are 


WILLIAM  PENN.  159 

we  under  obligation  of  everlasting  thanks  for 
our  free  and  happy  old  commonwealth. 

William  Penn. 

But  without  William  Penn  to  reinforce 
and  more  fully  execute  the  noble  plans,  ideas, 
and  beginnings  which  went  before  him,  things 
perhaps  never  would  have  come  to  the  fortu- 
nate results  which  he  was  the  honored  instru- 
ment in  bringing  about. 

This  man,  so  renowned  in  the  history  of  our 
State,  and  so  specially  honored  by  the  peculiar 
Society  of  which  he  was  a  zealous  apostle,  was 
respectably  descended.  His  grandfather  was 
a  captain  in  the  English  navy,  and  his  father 
became  a  distinguished  naval  officer,  who 
reached  high  promotion  and  gave  his  son 
the  privileges  of  a  good  education. 

Penn  was  for  three  years  a  student  in  the 
University  of  Oxford,  until  expelled,  with 
others,  for  certain  offensive  non-conformities. 
He  was  not  what  we  would  call  religiously 
trained,  but  he  was  endowed  with  a  strong 
religious  nature,  even  bordering  on  fanaticism, 
so  that  he  needed  only  the  application  of  the 
match  to  set  his  whole  being  aglow  and  active 
with  the  profoundest  zeal,  whether  wise  or  oth- 
erwise.    And  that  match  was  early  applied. 


160        THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

When  England  had  reached  the  summit 
of  delirium  under  her  usurping  Protector, 
Oliver  Cromwell,  there  arose,  among  many 
other  sects  full  of  enthusiastic  self-assertion, 
that  of  the  Quakers,  who  were  chiefly  cha- 
racterized by  a  profound  religious,  and  oft  fan- 
atical, opposition  to  the  Established  Church, 
as  well  as  to  the  Crown.  Coming  in  contact 
with  one  of  their  most  zealous  preachers, 
young  Penn  was  inflamed  with  their  spirit 
and  became  a  vigorous  propagator  of  their 
particular  style  of  devotion. 

As  the  Quaker  tenets  respected  the  state 
as  well  as  religion,  the  bold  avowal  of  them 
brought  him  into  collision  with  the  laws, 
and  several  times  into  prison  and  banish- 
ment. But,  so  far  from  intimidating  him, 
this  only  the  more  confirmed  him  in  his 
convictions  and  fervency.  By  his  familiarity 
with  able  theologians,  such  as  Dr.  Owen  and 
Bishop  Tillotson,  as  well  as  from  his  own 
studies  of  the  Scriptures,  he  was  deeply 
grounded  in  the  main  principles  of  the 
evangelic  faith.  Indeed,  he  was  in  many 
things,  in  his  later  life,  much  less  a  Quaker 
tliau  many  wdio  glory  in  his  name,  and  all 
his  sons  after  him  found  their  religious  home 
in  the  Church  of  England,  wdiich,  to  Quakers 


AN  ESTIMATE  OF  PENN.  161 

generally,  was  a  very  Babylon.  But  he  was 
an  honest-minded,  pure,  and  cultured  Chris- 
tian believer,  holding  firmly  to  the  inward 
elements  of  the  orthodox  faith  in  God  and 
Christ,  in  revelation  and  eternal  judgment, 
in  the  rights  of  man  and  the  claims  of  jus- 
tice. If  some  of  his  friends  and  representa- 
tives did  not  deal  as  honorably  with  the  Swedes 
in  respect  to  their  prior  titles  to  their  improved 
lands  as  right  and  charity  would  require,  it  is 
not  to  be  set  down  to  his  personal  reproach. 
And  his  zeal  for  his  sect  and  his  genuine  de- 
votion to  God  and  religious  liberty,  together 
with  a  large-hearted  philanthropy,  were  the 
springs  which  moved  him  to  seize  the  oppor- 
tunity which  offered  in  the  settlement  of  his 
deceased  father's  claim  on  the  government 
to  secure  a  grant  of  territory  and  privilege 
to  form  a  free  state  in  America — first  for 
his  own,  and  then  for  all  other  persecuted 
people. 

An  Estimate  of  Penn. 
It  may  be  that  Penn  has  been  betimes  a 
little  overrated.  He  has,  and  deserves,  a  high 
place  in  the  history  of  our  commonwealth,  but 
he  was  not  the  real  founder  of  it ;  for  its  foun- 
dations were  laid  years  before  he  was  born  and 
11 


162        THE  FOUNDING    OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

more  than  forty  years  before  he  received  his 
charter.  He  founded  Pennsylvania  only  as 
Americus  Vespucius  discovered  America.  Nei- 
ther was  he  the  author  of  those  elements  of  free 
government,  equal  rights,  and  religious  liberty 
which  have  characterized  our  commonwealth. 
They  were  the  common  principles  of  Luther 
and  the  Reformation,  and  were  already  largely 
embodied  for  this  very  territory  *  long  before 
Penn's  endeavors,  as  also,  in  measure,  in  the 
Roman  Catholic  colony  of  Maryland  from  the 
same  source. 

Nor  was  he,  in  his  own  strength,  possessed 
of  so  much  wise  forethought  and  profound  leg- 
islative and  executive  ability  as  that  with  which 
he  is  sometimes  credited.  But  he  was  a  consci- 
entious, earnest,  and  God-fearing  man,  cultured 
by  education  and  grace,  gifted  with  admirable 
address,  sincere  and  philanthropic  in  his  aims, 
and  guided  and  impelled  by  circumstances  and 
a  peculiar  religious  zeal  which  Providence  over- 
ruled to  ends  far  greater  than  his  own  intentions 
or  thoughts. 

Penn  and  the  Indians. 

What  is  called  Penn's  particular  policy  to- 

*See  sketch  of  the  plan  of  Gustavus  Adolphos  for  his  colonj, 
page  143,  and  the  instructions  given  to  Governor  Printz  in  1042. 


PENN  AND  THE  INDIANS.  163 

ward  the  Indians,  and  the  means  of  hid  successes 
in  that  regard,  existed  in  practical  force  scores 
of  years  before  he  arrived.  His  celebrated 
treaties  with  them,  as  far  as  they  were  fact, 
were  but  continuations  and  repetitions  between 
them  and  the  English,  which  had  long  before 
been  made  between  them  and  the  Swedes,  who 
did  more  for  these  barbarian  peoples  than  he, 
and  who  helped  him  in  the  matter  more  than 
he  helped  himself. 

We  are  not  fully  informed  respecting  all  the 
first  instructions  given  to  Governor  Minuit  when 
he  came  hither  with  Pennsylvania's  original 
colony  in  1637-38,  but  there  is  every  reason  to 
infer  that  they  strictly  corresponded  to  those 
given  to  his  successor,  Governor  Printz,  five 
years  afterward,  on  his  appointment  in  1642, 
about  which  there  can  be  no  question.  Minuit 
entered  into  negotiations  with  the  Indians  the 
very  first  thing  on  his  landing,  and  purchased 
from  them,  as  the  rightful  proprietors,  all  the 
land  on  the  western  side  of  the  river  from 
Henlopen  to  Trenton  Falls ;  a  deed  for  which 
was  regularly  drawn  up,  to  which  the  Indians 
subscribed  their  hands  and  marks.  Posts  were 
also  driven  into  the  ground  as  landmarks  of  this 
treaty,  which  were  still  visible  in  their  places 
sixty  years  afterward. 


164       THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

In  the  appointment  and  commission  of  Gov- 
ernor Printz  it  was  commanded  him  to  "  bear 
in  mind  the  articles  of  contract  entered  into 
with  the  wild  inhabitants  of  the  country  as  its 
rightful  lords."  "  The  wild  nations  bordering 
on  all  other  sides  the  governor  shall  understand 
how  to  treat  with  all  humanity  and  respect, 
that  no  violence  or  wrong  be  done  them ;  but 
he  shall  rather  at  every  opportunity  exert  him- 
self that  the  same  wild  people  may  gradually 
be  instructed  in  the  truths  and  worship  of  the 
Christian  religion,  and  in  other  ways  brought 
to  civilization  and  good  government,  and  in 
this  manner  properly  guided.  Especially  shall 
he  seek  to  gain  their  confidence,  and  impress 
upon  their  minds  that  neither  he,  the  governor, 
nor  his  people  and  subordinates,  are  come  into 
those  parts  to  do  them  any  wrong  or  injury." 

This  policy  was  not  a  thing  of  mere  coinci- 
dence. It  was  the  express  stipulation  and  com- 
mand of  the  throne  of  Sweden,  August  15, 1 642, 
which  was  two  years  before  William  Pcnn  was 
born ;  and  "  this  policy  was  steadily  pursued 
and  adhered  to  by  the  Swedes  during  the  whole 
time  of  their  continuance  in  America,  as  the 
governors  of  the  territory  of  which  they  had 
thus  acquired  the  possession, ;  and  the  conse- 
quences were  of  the  most  satisfactory  character. 


PENN  AND   THE  INDIANS.  165 

They  lived  in  peace  with  the  Indians,  and  re- 
ceived no  injuries  from  them.  The  Indians 
respected  them,  and  long  after  the  Swedish 
power  had  disappeared  from  the  shores  of  the 
Delaware  they  continued  to  cherish  its  memory 
and  speak  of  it  with  confidence  and  affection."* 

Governor  Printz  arrived  in  this  country  in 
1642,  and  with  him  came  Rev.  John  Campanius 
as  chaplain  and  pastor  of  the  Swedish  colony. 
His  grandson,  Thomas  Campanius  Holm,  many 
years  after  published  numerous  items  put  on 
record  by  the  elder  Campanius,  in  which  it  ap- 
pears that  the  commands  to  Printz  respecting 
the  Indians  were  very  scrupulously  carried  out. 

According  to  these  records,  the  Indians  were 
very  familiar  at  the  house  of  the  elder  Campa- 
nius, and  he  did  much  to  teach  and  Christian- 
ize them.  "  He  generally  succeeded  in  making 
them  understand  that  there  is  one  Lord  God, 
self-existent  and  one  in  three  Persons ;  how  the 
same  God  made  the  world,  and  made  man,  from 
whom  all  other  men  have  descended  ;  how  Adam 
afterward  disobeyed,  sinned  against  his  Creator, 
and  involved  all  his  descendants  in  condemna- 
tion ;  how  God  sent  his  only-begotten  Son  Jesus 
Christ  into  the  world,  who  was  born  of  the  Vir- 
gin Mary  and  suffered  for  the  saving  of  men ; 

*  Introduction  to  Acrelius's  History. 


166        THE  FOUNDING    OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

how  he  died  upon  the  cross,  and  was  raised 
again  the  third  day ;  and,  lastly,  how,  after 
forty  days,  he  ascended  into  heaven,  whence  he 
will  return  at  a  future  day  to  judge  the  living 
and  the  dead,"  etc.  And  so  much  interest  did 
Jiey  take  in  these  instructions,  and  seemed  so 
well  disposed  to  embrace  Christianity,  that 
Campanius  was  induced  to  study  and  master 
their  language,  that  he  might  the  more  effect- 
ually teach  them  the  religion  of  Christ.  He 
also  translated  into  the  Indian  language  the 
Catechism  of  Luther,  perhaps  the  very  first 
book  ever  put  into  the  Indian  tongue. 

Campanius  began  his  work  of  evangelizing 
these  wild  people  four  years  before  Eliot,  who 
is  sometimes  called  "  the  morning  star  of  mis- 
sionary enterprise,"  but  who  first  commenced  his 
labors  in  New  England  only  in  164G.  Hence 
Dr.  Clay  remarks  that  "  the  Swedes  may  claim 
the  honor  of  having  been  the  first  missionaries 
among  the  Indians,  at  least  in  Pennsylvania."* 
"  It  was,  in  fact,  the  Swedes  ivho  inaugurated  the 
'peaceful  'policy  of  William  Perm.  This  was  not 
an  accidental  circumstance  in  the  Swedish  pol- 
icy, but  was  deliberately  adopted  and  always 
carefully  observed."  f 

*  Swedish  Annah,  p.  2G. 

f  Dr.  Reynuldu'a  Introduction  to  Acrcliufif  p.  14. 


PENN  AND   THE  INDIANS.  167 

When  Mr.  Rising  became  governor  of  the 
Swedish  colony  he  invited  ten  Indian  chiefs,  or 
kings,  to  a  friendly  conference  with  him.  It 
was  held  at  Tinicum,  on  the  Delaware,  June 
17,  1654,  when  the  governor  saluted  them,  in 
the  name  of  the  Swedish  queen,  with  assurances 
of  every  kindness  toward  them,  and  proposed 
to  them  a  firm  renewal  of  the  old  friendship. 
Campanius  has  given  a  minute  account  of  this 
conference,  and  recites  the  speech  in  which  one 
of  the  chiefs,  named  Naaman,  testified  how  good 
the  Swedes  had  been  to  them ;  that  the  Swedes 
and  Indians  had  been  in  the  time  of  Governor 
Printz  as  one  body  and  one  heart;  that  they 
would  henceforward  be  as  one  head,  like  the 
calabash,  which  has  neither  rent  nor  seam,  but 
one  piece  without  a  crack  ;  and  that  in  case  of 
danger  to  the  Swedes  they  would  ever  serve 
and  defend  them.  It  was  at  the  same  time 
further  arranged  and  agreed  that  if  any  tres- 
passes were  committed  by  any  of  their  people 
upon  the  property  of  the  Swedes,  the  matter 
should  be  investigated  by  men  chosen  from 
both  sides,  and  the  person  found  guilty  "  should 
be  punished  for  it  as  a  warning  to  others."* 
This  occurred  when  William  Perm  was  but  ten 

*  See  Acrelius's  History,  pp.  64,  6o,  and  Clay's  Swedish  Annals, 
pp.  24,  25. 


168        THE  FOUNDING    OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

years  of  ago,  and  twenty-eight  years  before  his 
arrival  in  America. 

And  upon  the  subject  of  the  help  which  the 
Swedes  rendered  to  Penn  in  his  dealings  with 
these  people  in  the  long  after  years,  Acrelius 
writes :  "  The  Proprietor  ingratiated  himself 
with  the  Indians.  The  Swedes  acted  as  his 
interpreters,  especially  Captain  Lars  (Law- 
rence) Kock,  who  was  a  great  favorite  among 
the  Indians.  He  was  sent  to  New  York  to 
buy  goods  suitable  for  traffic.  He  did  all  he 
'could  to  give  them  a  good  opinion  of  their  new 
ruler"  (p.  114)  ;  and  it  was  by  means  of  the 
aid  and  endeavors  of  the  Swedes,  more  than  by 
any  influence  of  his  own,  that  Penn  came  to 
the  standing  with  these  people  to  which  he  at- 
tained, and  on  which  his  fame  in  that  regard 
rests. 

Penn's  Work. 
But  still,  as  a  man,  a  colonist,  a  governor, 
and  a  friend  of  the  race,  we  owe  to  William 
Penn  great  honor  and  respect,  and  his  arrival 
here  is  amply  worthy  of  our  grateful  com- 
memoration. The  location  and  framing  of 
this  goodly  city,  and  a  united  and  consolidated 
Pennsylvania  established  finally  in  its  original 
principles  of  common  rights  and  common  free- 


THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  169 

dom,  are  his  lasting  monument.  If  he  was  not 
the  spring  of  our  colonial  existence,  he  was  its 
reinforcement  by  a  strong  and  fortunate  stream, 
which  more  fully  determined  the  channel  of 
its  history.  If  the  doctrine  of  liberty  of  con- 
science and  religion,  the  princij)les  of  toleration 
and  common  rights,  and  the  embodying  of  them 
in  a  free  state  open  to  all  sufferers  for  conscience' 
sake,  did  not  originate  with  him,  he  perform- 
ed a  noble  work  and  contributed  a  powerful 
influence  toward  their  final  triumph  and  per- 
manent establishment  on  this  territory.  And 
his  career,  taken  all  in  all,  connects  his  name 
with  an  illustrious  service  to  the  cause  of  free- 
dom, humanity,  and  even  Christianity,  especial- 
ly in  its  more  practical  and  ethical  bearings. 

The  Greatness  of  Faith. 
Such,  then,  were  the  men  most  concerned 
in  founding  and  framing  our  grand  old  com- 
monwealth. They  were  men  of  faith,  men  of 
thorough  culture,  men  of  mark  by  birth  and 
station,  men  who  had  learned  to  grapple  with 
the  great  problem  of  human  rights,  human 
happiness,  human  needs,  and  human  relations 
to  heaven  and  earth.  They  believed  in  God, 
in  the  revelation  of  God,  in  the  Gospel  of 
Christ,  in  the  responsibility  of  the  soul  to  its 


170        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Maker,  and  in  the  demands  of  a  living  charity 
toward  God  and  all  his  creatures.  And  their 
religious  faith  and  convictions  constituted  the 
fire  which  set  them  in  motion  and  sustained 
and  directed  their  exertions  for  the  noble 
ends  which  it  is  ours  so  richly  to  enjoy.  Had 
they  not  been  the  earnest  Christians  that  they 
were,  they  never  could  have  been  the  men  they 
proved  themselves,  nor  ever  have  thought  the 
thoughts  or  achieved  the  glorious  works  for 
ever  connected  with  their  names. 

We  are  apt  to  contemplate  Christian  faith 
and  devotion  only  in  its  more  private  and 
personal  effects  on  individual  souls,  the  light 
and  peace  it  brings  to  the  true  believer,  and 
the  purification  and  hope  it  works  in  the 
hearts  of  those  who  receive  it,  whilst  we 
overlook  its  force  upon  the  great  world  out- 
side and  its  shapings  of  the  facts  and  cur- 
rents of  history.  We  think  of  Luther  wrest- 
ling with  his  sins,  despairing  and  dying  under 
the  impossible  task  of  working  out  for  himself 
an  availing  righteousness,  and  rejoice  with  him 
in  the  light  and  peace  which  came  to  his  ago- 
nized soul  through  the  grand  and  all-condi- 
tioning doctrine  of  justification  by  simple 
faith  in  an  all-sufficient  Redeemer;  but  we 
do   not  always   realize    how   the    breaking   of 


THE  GREATNESS  OF  FAITH.  171 

that  evangelic  principle  into  his  earnest  heart 
was  the  incarnation  of  a  power  which  divided 
the  Christian  ages,  brought  the  world  over  the 
summit  of  the  water-shed,  and  turned  the  grav- 
itation of  the  laboring  nations  toward  a  new 
era  of  liberty  and  happiness.  And  so  we  refer 
to  the  spiritual  training  of  a  Gustavus  Adol- 
phus  and  an  Axel  Oxenstiern  in  the  single 
truths  of  Luther's  Catechism  and  the  restored 
Gospel,  and  to  the  opening  of  the  heart  of 
a  William  Penn  to  the  exhortations  of  Friend 
Loe  to  forsake  the  follies  01  the  corrupt  world 
and  seek  his  portion  with  the  pure  in  heaven, 
and  mark  the  unfoldings  of  their  better  nature 
which  those  blessed  instructions  wrought  ; 
whilst  we  fail  to  note  that  therein  lay  the 
springs  and  germs  which  have  given  us  our 
grand  commonwealth  and  established  for  us 
the  free  institutions  of  Church  and  State  in 
which  we  so  much  glory  and  rejoice. 

Ah,  yes  ;  there  is  greatness  and  good  and 
blessing  untold  for  man  and  for  the  world 
in  the  personal  hearing,  believing,  and  heed- 
ing of  the  Word  and  testimony  of  God.  No 
man  can  tell  to  what  new  impulses  in  human 
history,  or  to  what  new  currents  of  benedic- 
tion and  continents  of  national  glory,  it  may 
lead  for  souls  in  the  school  of  Christ  to  cpen 


172        THE  FOUNDING    OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

themselves  meekly  to  the  inflowings  of  Heav- 
en's free  grace.  It  was  the  sowing  of  God's 
truth  and  the  planting  of  God's  Spirit  in 
these  men's  hearts  that  most  of  all  grew  for 
us  our  country  and  our  blessed  liberties. 


II.  THE  PRINCIPLES  ENTHRONED. 

The  religious  element  in  man  is  the  deep- 
est and  most  powerful  in  his  nature.  It  is 
that  also  which  asserts  and  claims  the  greatest 
independence  from  external  constraints.  It  is 
therefore  the  height  of  unwisdom,  not  to  say 
tyranny,  for  earthly  magistracy  to  interfere  by 
penalty  and  sword  with  the  religious  opinions 
and  movements  of  the  people,  so  long  as 
civil  authority  and  public  order  are  not  in- 
vaded and  the  rights  of  others  are  not  in- 
fringed. In  such  cases  it  is  always  best  to 
combat  only  with  the  Word  of  God.  If  of 
men  it  will  come  to  naught,  and  if  of  God  it 
cannot  be  suppressed.  Reaction  against  wrongs 
done  to  truth  and  right  is  sure  to  come,  and 
will  push  through  to  revolution  and  victory 
in  spite  of  all  unrighteous  power.  It  is  vain 
for  any  human  governments  to  think  to  chain 
up  the  honest  convictions  of  the  soul.  God 
made  it  free,  and  sooner  or  later  it  will  be 
fr  e,  in  spite  of  everything. 

It  was  largely  the  weight  and  current  of 
such  reaction  against  arbitrary  interference 
with  the  religious   convictions   and  free  con- 

173 


174        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

science  of  man  that  furnished  the  impulse 
to  the  original  peopling  of  our  State  and 
country,  and  gave  shape  to  the  constitution 
and  laws  of  this  commonwealth  for  the  last 
two  hundred  years.  Nor  will  our  inquiries 
and  showings  with  regard  to  the  founding 
of  Pennsylvania  be  complete  without  some- 
thing more  respecting  the  leading  principles 
which  governed  in  that  fortunate  movement. 

Our  State  the  Product  of  Faith. 

I.  It  is  a  matter  of  indisputable  fact  that 
the  founding  of  our  commonwealth  was  one 
of  the  direct  fruits  of  the  revived  Gospel  of 
Christ.  But  a  little  searching  into  the  influ- 
ences most  active  in  the  history  is  required  to 
show  that  it  was  religious  conviction  and  faith, 
more  than  anything  else,  that  had  to  do  with 
the  case. 

Changes  had  come.  Luther  had  found  the 
Bible  chained,  and  set  it  free.  Apostolic 
Christianity  had  reappeared,  and  was  re- 
uttering  itself  with  great  power  among  the 
nations.  Its  quickening  truths  and  growing 
victories  were  undermining  the  gigantic  usur- 
pations and  falsehoods  which  lor  ages  had 
been  oppressing  our  world.  Conscience,  illu- 
minated and  revived  by  the  Word  of  God,  had 


OUR  STATE  THE  PRODUCT  OF  FAITH.     175 

risen  up  to  assert  its  rights  of  free  judg- 
ment and  free  worship,  and  resentful  power 
had  drawn  the  sword  to  put  it  down.  Con- 
tinental Europe  was  being  deluged  with  blood 
and  devastated  by  relentless  religious  wars  to 
crush  out  the  evangelic  faith,  whose  confessors 
held  up  the  Bible  over  all  popes  and  secular 
powers,  and  would  not  consent  to  part  with 
their  inalienable  charter  from  the  throne  of 
Heaven  to  worship  God  according  to  his  Word. 
And  amid  these  woeful  struggles  the  good  prov- 
idence of  the  Almighty  opened  up  to  the  at- 
tention of  the  nations  the  vast  new  territories 
of  this  Western  World. 

From  various  motives,  indeed,  were  the 
several  original  colonies  of  America  founded. 
Some  of  the  colonists  came  from  a  spirit  of 
adventure.  Some  came  for  territorial  aggran- 
dizement and  national  enrichment.  Some  came 
as  mercantile  speculators.  And  each  of  these 
considerations  may  have  entered  somewhat 
into  the  most  of  these  colonization  schemes. 
But  it  was  mainly  flight  from  oppression  on 
account  of  religious  convictions  which  influ- 
enced the  first  colony  of  New  England,  and 
a  still  freer  religious  motive  induced  the  col- 
onization of  Pennsylvania. 

All  the  men  most  concerned  in  the  matter 


176       THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

were  profoundly  religious  men  and  thorough 
and  active  believers  in  revived  Christianity ; 
and  it  was  most  of  all  from  these  religious 
feelings  and  impulses  that  they  acted  in  the 
case. 

GUSTAVUS   AND    THE   SWEDES. 

The  first  presentation  to  the  king  of  Sweden, 
by  William  Usselinx,  touching  the  planting  of 
a  colony  on  the  west  bank  of  the  Delaware, 
looked  to  the  establishment  of  a  trading  com- 
pany with  unlimited  trading  privileges ;  and 
the  argument  for  it  was  the  great  source  of 
revenue  it  would  be  to  the  kingdom.  But 
when  Gustavus  Adolphus  entered  into  the 
subject  and  gave  his  royal  favor  to  it,  quite 
other  motives  and  considerations  came  in  to 
determine  his  course.  As  the  history  records, 
and  quite  aside  from  the  prospect  of  establish- 
ing his  power  in  these  parts  of  the  world,  "  the 
king,  whose  zeal  for  the  honor  of  God  was  not 
less  ardent  than  for  the  welfare  of  his  subjects, 
availed  himself  of  this  opportunity  to  extend  the 
doctrines  of  Christ  among  the  heathen,"*  and 
to  this  end  granted  letters  patent,  in  which  it 
was  farther  provided  that  a  free  state  should 
be  formed,    guaranteeing   all    personal    rights 

*  History  of  New  Sweden,  by  Israel  Acrelius,  p.  21. 


G  US  TA  V  US  A  ND    THE  S  WEDES.  177 

of  property,  honor,  and  religion,  and  forming 
an  asylum  and  place  of  security  for  the  per- 
secuted people  of  all  nations.  And  when  these 
gracious  intentions  of  the  king  were  revived 
after  his  death,  the  same  ideas  and  provisions 
were  carefully  maintained,  specially  stipulat- 
ing (1)  for  every  human  respect  toward  the 
Indians — to  wit,  that  the  governors  of  the  col- 
ony should  deal  justly  with  them  as  the  right- 
ful lords  of  the  land,  and  exert  themselves  at 
every  opportunity  "  that  the  same  wild  people 
may  be  instructed  in  the  truths  and  worship 
of  the  Christian  religion,  and  in  other  ways 
brought  to  civilization  and  good  government, 
and  in  this  manner  properly  guided ;"  (2) 
"  above  all  things  to  consider  and  see  to  it 
that  divine  service  be  duly  maintained  and 
zealously  performed  according  to  the  unal- 
tered Augsburg  Confession ;"  and  (3)  to  pro- 
tect those  of  a  different  confession  in  the  free 
exercise  of  their  own  forms.* 

It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  spirit  of  re- 
ligion, the  spirit  of  evangelical  missions,  the 
spirit  of  Christian  charity,  and  the  sjDirit  of 
devotion  to  the  protection  of  religious  liberty 
and  freedom  of  conscience  were  the  dominating 

*  Rehearsed  in  the  commission  to  Governor  Printz.  1642,  sections 
9  and  26. 
12 


178        THE  FOUNDING    OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

motives  on  the  part  of  those  who  founded  the 
first  permanent  settlement  on  the  territory  of 
Pennsylvania. 

The  Feelings  of  William  Penx. 

Bating  somewhat  the  missionary  character 
of  the  enterprise,  the  same  may  be  said  of 
William  Penn  and  his  great  reinforcement  to 
what  had  thus  been  successfully  begun  long 
before  his  time.  He  was  himself  a  very  zeal- 
ous preacher  of  religion,  though  more  in  the 
line  of  protest  against  the  world  and  the  exist- 
ing Church  than  in  the  line  of  positive  Chris- 
tianity and  the  conversion  and  evangelization 
of  the  heathen.  He  had  himself  been  a  great 
sufferer  for  his  religious  convictions,  along  with 
the  people  whose  cause  he  had  espoused  and 
made  his  own.  His  controlling  desire  was  to 
honor  and  glorify  God  in  the  founding  of  a 
commonwealth  in  which  those  of  his  way  of 
thinking  might  have  a  secure  home  of  their 
own  and  worship  their  Creator  as  best  agreed 
with  their  feelings  and  convictions,  without  be- 
ing molested  or  disturbed  ;  offering  at  the  same 
time  the  same  precious  boon  to  others  in  like 
constraints  willing  to  share  the  lot  of  his  en- 
deavors. 

The  motives  of  Charles  II.  in  granting  his 


THE  FEELINGS  OF   WILLIAM  PENN.        179 

charter  were,  first  of  all,  to  discharge  a  heavy 
pecuniary  claim  of  Perm  against  the  govern- 
ment on  account  jf  his  father ;  next,  to  honor 
the  memory  and  merits  of  the  late  Admiral 
Penn  ;  and,  finally,  at  the  same  time,  to  "favor 
William  Penn  in  his  laudable  efforts  to  enlarge 
the  British  empire,  to  promote  the  trade  and 
prosperity  of  the  kingdom,  and  to  reduce  the 
savage  nations  by  just  and  gentle  measures  to 
the  love  of  civilized  life  and  the  Christian  re- 
ligion." Penn's  idea,  as  stated  by  his  memor- 
ialist, was  "  to  obtain  the  grant  of  a  territory 
on  the  west'  side  of  the  Delaware,  in  which  he 
might  not  only  furnish  an  asylum  to  Friends 
(Quakers),  and  others  who  were  persecuted  on 
account  of  their  religious  persuasion,  but  might 
erect  a  government  upon  principles  approach- 
ing much  nearer  the  standard  of  evangelical 
purity  than  any  which  had  been  previously 
raised." 

His  own  account  of  the  matter  is  :  "  For  my 
country  I  eyed  the  Lord  in  obtaining  it ;  and 
more  was  I  drawn  inward  to  look  to  him,  and 
to  owe  it  to  his  hand  and  power,  than  to  any 
other  way.  I  have  so  obtained  it,  and  desire 
to  keep  it,  that  I  may  not  be  unworthy  of  his 
love,  but  do  that  which  may  answer  his  kind 
providence  and    serve    his    truth   and   people, 


180        THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

that  an  example  may  be  set  up  to  the  nations. 
There  may  be  room  there,  though  not  here,  for 
such  an  holy  experiment."  "  I  do  therefore 
desire  the  Lord's  wisdom  to  guide  me  and 
those  that  may  be  concerned  with  me,  that  we 
may  do  the  thing  that  is  truly  wise  and  just." 

And  with  these  aims  and  this  sj>irit  he  in- 
vited people  to  join  him,  came  to  the  territory 
which  had  been  granted  him,  conferred  with 
the  Swedish  and  Dutch  colonists  already  on 
the  ground,  and  together  with  them  estab- 
lished the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsylvania. 

Kecognition  of  the  Divine  Beixg. 

II.  Accordingly,  also,  the  chief  corner-stone 
in  the  constitutional  fabric  of  our  State  was  the 
united  official  acknowledgment  of  the  being: 
and  supremacy  of  one  eternal  and  ever-living 
God,  the  Judge  of  all  men  and  the  Lord  of 
nations. 

The  self-existence  and  government  of  Al- 
mighty God  is  the  foundation  of  all  things. 
Nothing  is  without  him.  And  the  devout  and 
dutiful  recognition  of  him  and  the  absolute 
supremacy  of  his  laws  are  the  basis  and  chief 
element  of  everything  good  and  stable  in  hu- 
man affairs,  lie  who  denies  this  or  fails  in 
its  acknowledgment  is  so  far  practically  self- 


RECOGNITION  OF  THE  DIVINE  BEING.     181 

stultified,  beside  himself,  outside  the  sphere  of 
sound  rationality,  and  incapable  of  rightly  un- 
derstanding or  directing  himself  or  anything 
else.  Nor  could  those  who  founded  our  com- 
monwealth have  been  moved  as  they  were,  or 
achieved  the  happy  success  they  did,  had  it  not 
been  for  their  clear,  profound,  and  practical  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  being  and  government 
of  that  good  and  almighty  One  who  fills  im- 
mensity and  eternity,  and  from  whom,  and  by 
whom,  and  to  whom  are  all  things. 

Some  feel  and  act  as  if  it  were  an  imbecility, 
or  a  thing  only  for  the  weak,  timid,  and  help- 
less, to  be  concerned  about  an  Almighty  God. 
But  greater,  braver,  and  more  manly  men  did 
not  then  exist  than  those  who  were  most  prom- 
inent and  active  in  founding  and  framing  our 
commonwealth  ;  and  of  all  men  then  making 
themselves  felt  in  the  affairs  of  our  world,  they 
were  among  the  most  honest  and  devout  in  the 
practical  confession  of  the  eternal  being  and 
providence  of  Jehovah. 

The  great  Gustavus  Aclolphus  and  the  equal- 
ly great  Axel  Oxenstiern  held  and  confessed 
from  their  deepest  souls  and  in  all  their  thoughts 
and  doings  that  there  is  an  eternal  God,  infinite 
in  power,  wisdom,  and  goodness,  the  Creator, 
Preserver,  and  Judge  of  all  things,  visible  and 


182        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

invisible,  and  that  on  him  and  his  favor  alone 
all  good  and  prosperity  in  this  world  and  the 
next  depends.  This  they  ever  formally  and 
devoutly  set  forth  in  all  their  state  papers  and 
in  all  their  undertakings  and  doings,  whether 
as  men  or  as  rulers.  The  sound  of  songs  and 
prayers  to  this  almighty  and  ever-present  God 
was  heard  at  every  sunrise  through  all  the 
army  of  Gustavus  in  the  field,  as  well  as  in 
the  tent  and  closet  of  its  great  commander. 
And  all  the  instructions  given  to  the  governors 
of  the  colony  on  the  Delaware  were  meekly 
conditioned  to  the  will  of  God,  with  specific 
emphasis  on  the  provision  :  "Above  all  things, 
shall  the  governor  consider  and  see  to  it  that  a 
true  and  due  worship,  becoming  honor,  laud, 
and  praise  be  paid  to  the  Most  High  in  all 
things." 

The  same  is  true  of  William  Penn.  From 
early  life  he  was  always  a  zealous  exhort er  to 
the  devout  worship  of  Almighty  God  as  the 
only  Illuminator  and  Helper  of  men.  Whal 
he  averred  in  his  letter  to  the  Indians  was  the 
great  root-principle  of  his  life:  "There  is  a 
great  God  and  Power,  which  hath  made  the 
world  and  all  tilings  therein,  to  whom  you 
and  I  and  all  people  owe  their  being  and  well- 
being,  and  to  whom  von  and   I   must   one  day 


ENACTMENTS  ON  THE  SUBJECT.  183 

give  an  account  for  all  that  we  have  done  in 
this  world. " 

And  what  was  thus  wrought  into  the  texture 
of  his  being  he  also  wove  into  the  original  con- 
stitution of  our  State. 

Enactments  ox  the  Subject. 
All  the  articles  of  government  and  regulation 
ordained  by  the  first  General  Assembly,  held 
at  Upland  (Chester)  from  the  seventh  to  the 
tenth  day  of  December,  1682,  were  funda- 
mentally grounded  on  this  express  "  Whereas, 
the  glory  of  Almighty  God  and  the  good  of 
mankind  is  the  reason  and  end  of  government, 
and  therefore  government  itself  is  a  valuable 
ordinance  of  God  ;  and  forasmuch  as  it  is  prin- 
cipally desired  to  make  and  establish  such  laws 
as  shall  best  preserve  true  Christian  and  civil 
liberty,  in  opposition  to  all  unchristian,  licen- 
tious, and  unjust  practices,  whereby  God  may 
have  his  due,  Caesar  his  due,  and  the  people 
their  due,  from  tyranny  and  oppression  on  the 
one  side,  and  insolence  and  licentiousness  on 
the  other ;  so  that  the  best  and  firmest  foun- 
dation may  be  laid  for  the  present  and  future 
happiness  of  both  the  governor  and  the  people 
of  this  province  and  their  posterity;"  for  it  was 
deemed  and  believed  on  all  hands  that  neither 


184       THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

permanence  nor  happiness,  enduring  order  i  or 
prosperity,  could  come  from  any  other  principle 
than  that  of  the  recognition  of  the  supremacy 
and  laws  of  Him  from  whom  all  things  proceed 
and  on  whom  all  creatures  depend. 

On  this  wise  also  ran  the  very  first  of  the 
sixty-one  laws  ordained  by  that  Assembly : 
"Almighty  God  being  the  Lord  of  conscience, 
Father  of  lights,  and  the  Author  as  well  as 
Object  of  all  divine  knowledge,  faith,  and  wor- 
ship, who  alone  can  enlighten  the  mind  and 
convince  the  understanding  of  people  in  due 
reverence  to  his  sovereignty  over  the  souls  of 
mankind,"  the  rights  of  citizenship,  protection, 
and  liberty  should  be  to  every  person,  then  or 
thereafter  residing  in  this  province,  "  who  shall 
confess  one  Almighty  God  to  be  the  Creator, 
Upholder,  and  Ruler  of  the  world,  and  profess 
himself  obliged  in  conscience  to  live  peaceably 
and  justly  under  the  civil  government;"  pro- 
vided, further,  that  no  person  antagonizing  this 
confession,  or  refusing  to  profess  the  same,  or 
convicted  of  unsober  or  dishonest  conversation, 
should  ever  hold  office  in  this  commonwealth. 

And  so  entirely  did  this,  and  what  else  was 
then  and  there  enacted  and  ordained,  fall  in 
with  the  teachings,  feeling's,  and  beliefs  of  the 
hardv    and   devoted    Swedish    Lutherans,    who 


IMPORTANCE  OF  THIS  PRINCIPLE.  185 

had  here  been  professing  and  fulfilling  the 
same  for  two  scores  of  years  preceding,  that 
they  not  only  joined  in  the  making  of  these 
enactments,  but  sent  a  special  deputation  to 
the  governor  formally  to  assure  him  that,  on 
these  principles  and  the  faithful  administration 
of  them,  they  would  love,  serve,  and  obey  him 
with  all  they  possessed. 

Importance  of  this  Principle. 
Nor  can  it  ever  be  known  in  this  world  how 
much  of  the  success,  prosperity,  and  happy 
conservatism  which  have  marked  this  com- 
monwealth in  all  the  days  and  years  since, 
have  come  directly  from  this  planting  of  it  on 
the  grand  corner-stone  of  all  national  stability, 
order,  and  happiness.  Surely,  a  widely  differ- 
ent course  and  condition  of  things  would  have 
come  but  for  this  secure  anchoring  of  the  ship 
on  the  everlasting  Rock.  And  a  thousand 
pities  it  is  that  the  influence  of  French  athe- 
ism was  allowed  to  exclude  so  wholesome  a 
j>rinciple  from  the  Declaration  of  our  national 
Independence  and  from  our  national  Consti- 
tution. Whilst  such  recognition  of  Jehovah's 
supremacy  and  government  abides  in  living 
force  in  the  hearts  of  the  people,  the  absence 
of  its  official  formulation  may  be  of  no  material 


186        THE  FOUND  TNG   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

disadvantage ;  but  for  the  better  preservation 
of  it  in  men's  minds,  and  for  the  obstruction 
of  the  insidious  growth  of  what  strikes  at  the 
foundation  of  all  government  and  order,  it 
would  have  been  well  had  the  same  been  put 
in  place  as  the  grand  corner-stone  of  our  whole 
national  fabric,  as  it  was  in  the  original  or- 
ganization of  the  Commonwealth  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  kept  in  both  clear  and  unchange- 
able for  ever.  We  might  then  hope  for  better 
things  than  are  indicated  by  the  present  drift, 
and  the  outlook  for  those  to  come  after  us 
would  be  less  dark  and  doubtful  than  it  is. 

But,  since  weakenings  and  degeneration  in 
these  respects  have  come  into  the  enactments 
of  public  power,  it  is  all  the  more  needful  for 
every  true  and  patriotic  citizen  to  be  earnest 
and  firm  in  witnessing  for  God  and  his  ever- 
lasting laws,  that  the  people  may  be  better 
than  the  later  expressions  of  their  state  doc- 
uments. The  example  of  the  fathers  makes 
appeal  to  the  consciences  of  their  children  not 
to  let  go  from  our  hearts  and  lives  the  deep 
and  abiding  recognition  and  confession  of  that 
almighty  Governor  of  all  things  from  whose 
righteous  tribunal  no  one  living  can  escape, 
and  before  whom  no  contemner  of  his  author- 
ity   can  stand. 


religious  liberty.  187 

Religious  Liberty. 

III.  Another  great  and  precious  principle 
enthroned  in  the  founding  of  our  common- 
wealth was  that  of  religious  liberty. 

One  of  the  saddest  chapters  in  human  his- 
tory is  that  of  persecution  on  account  of  relig- 
ious convictions — the  imposition  of  penalties, 
torture,  and  death  by  the  sword  of  government 
on  worthy  people  because  of  their  honest  opin- 
ions of  duty  to  Almighty  God.  For  the  pun- 
ishment of  the  lawless,  the  wicked,  and  the 
intractable,  and  for  the  praise,  peace,  and 
protection  of  them  that  do  well,  the  civil 
magistrate  is  truly  the  authorized  represent- 
ative of  God,  and  fails  in  his  office  and  duty 
where  the  powers  he  wields  are  not  studiously 
and  vigorously  exercised  to  these  ends.  But 
God  hath  reserved  to  himself,  and  hath  not 
committed  to  any  creature  hands,  the  power 
and  dominion  to  interfere  with  the  realm  of 
conscience.  As  he  alone  can  instruct  and 
govern  it,  and  as  its  sphere  is  that  of  the  recog- 
nition of  his  will  and  law  and  the  soul's  direct 
amenability  to  his  judgment-bar,  it  is  a  gross 
usurpation  and  a  wicked  presumption  for  any 
other  authority  or  power  to  undertake  to  force 
obedience  contrary  to  the  soul's  persuasion  of 


188        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

what  its  Maker  demands  of  it  as  a  condition 
of  his  favor. 

It  is  a  principle  of  human  action  and  obli- 
gation recognized  in  both  Testaments,  that 
when  the  requirements  of  human  authority 
conflict  with  those  of  the  Father  of  spirits  we 
must  obey  God  rather  than  man.  The  rights 
of  conscience  and  the  rights  of  God  thus  coin- 
cide, and  to  trample  on  the  one  is  to  deny  the 
other.  And  when  earthly  governments  invade 
this  sacred  territory  they  invade  the  exclusive 
domain  of  God  and  make  war  upon  the  very  au- 
thority from  which  they  have  their  right  to  be. 

The  plea  of  its  necessity  for  the  support  of 
orthodoxy,  the  maintenance  of  the  truth,  and 
the  glory  of  God  will  not  avail  for  its  justifica- 
tion, for  God  has  not  ordained  civil  govern- 
ment to  inflict  imprisonment,  exile,  and  death 
upon  religious  dissenters,  or  even  heretics  ;  and 
his  truth  and  glory  he  has  arranged  to  take 
care  of  in  quite  another  fashion.  "What  Justin 
Martyr  and  Tertullian  in  the  early  Church 
and  Luther  in  the  Reformation-time  declared, 
must  for  ever  stand  among  the  settled  verities 
of  Heaven :  that  it  is  not  right  to  murder, 
burn,  and  afflict  people  because  they  feel  in 
conscience  bound  to  a  belief  and  course  of  life 
which   they   have  found   and   embraced   as  the 


PERSECUTION  FOR   OPINION'S  SAKE.       189 

certain  will  and  requirement  of  their  Maker. 
We  must  ward  off  heresy  with  the  sword  of 
the  Spirit,  which  is  the  Word  of  God,  and  not 
with  the  sword  of  the  state  and  with  fire. 

Persecution  for  Opinion's  Sake. 
And  yet  such  abuses  of  power  have  been 
staining  and  darkening  all  the  ages  of  human 
administration,  and,  unfortunately,  among  pro- 
fessing Christians  as  well  as  among  pagans  and 
Jews.  Intolerance  is  so  rooted  in  the  selfish- 
ness and  ambition  of  human  nature  that  it 
has  ever  been  one  of  the  most  difficult  of  prac- 
tical problems  to  curb  and  regulate  it.  Those 
who  have  most  complained  of  it  whilst  feeling 
it,  often  only  needed  to  have  the  circumstances 
reversed  in  order  to  fall  into  similar  wicked- 
ness. The  Puritans,  who  fled  from  it  as  from 
the  Dragon  himself,  soon  had  their  Star-Cham- 
ber  too,  their  whipping-posts,  their  death-scaf- 
folds, and  their  sentences  of  exile  for  those  who 
dissented  from  their  orthodoxy  and  their  order. 
Even  infidelity  and  atheism,  always  the  most 
blatant  for  freedom  when  in  the  minority,  have 
shown  in  the  philosophy  of  Hobbes  and  in  the 
Keign  of  Terror  in  France  that  they  are  as 
liable  to  be  intolerant,  fanatical,  and  oppres- 
sive when  they  have  the  mastery  as  the  strong- 


190        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

est  faith  and  the  most  assured  religionism. 
And  the  Quakers  themselves,  who  make  free- 
dom of  conscience  one  of  the  chief  corner- 
stones of  their  religion,  have  not  always  been 
free  from  offensive  and  disorderly  aggressions 
upon  the  rightful  sphere  of  government  and 
the  rightful  religious  freedom  of  other  wor- 
shipers. Even  so  treacherous  is  the  human 
heart  on  the  subject  of  just  and  equal  religious 
toleration. 

Spirit  of  the  Founders. 

It  is  therefore  a  matter  of  everlasting  grat- 
itude and  thanksgiving  that  all  the  men  most 
concerned  in  the,  founding  of  our  common- 
wealth were  so  clear  and  well-balanced  on  the 
subject  of  religious  liberty,  and  so  thoroughly 
inwove  the  same  into  its  organic  constitution. 

Gustavus  Adolphus  and  Axel  Oxenstiern 
were  the  heroes  of  their  time  in  the  cause  of  re- 
ligious liberty  in  continental  Europe.  Though 
intensely  troubled  in  their  administration  by 
the  Roman  Catholics  and  the  Anabaptists, 
the  most  intolerant  of  intolerants  in  those 
days,  they  never  opposed  force  against  the 
beliefs  or  worships  of  either;  and  when  force 
was  used  against  the  papal  powers,  it  was  only 
so  far  as  to  preserve  unto  themselves  and  their 


SPIRIT  OF  THE  FOUNDERS.  191 

fellow-confessors  the  inalienable  right  to  wor- 
ship God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own 
consciences  without  molestation  or  disturbance. 
In  their  scheme  of  colonization  in  this  Western 
World,  first  and  last,  the  invitation  was  to  all 
classes  of  Christians  in  suffering  and  persecu- 
tion for  conscience'  sake,  who  were  favorable 
to  a  free  state  where  they  could  have  the  free 
enjoyment  of  their  property  and  religion,  to 
cast  in  their  lot.  In  the  first  charter,  confirmed 
by  all  the  authorities  of  the  kingdom  and  re- 
hearsed in  the  instructions  given  by  the  throne 
for  the  execution  of  the  intention,  special  pro- 
vision was  made  for  the  protection  of  the  con- 
victions and  worship  of  those  not  of  the  same 
confession  with  that  for  which  the  government 
provided.  Though  a  Lutheran  colony,  under 
a  Lutheran  king,  sustained  and  protected  by 
a  Lutheran  government,  the  Calvinists  had 
place  and  equal  protection  in  it  from  the  very 
beginning ;  and  when  the  Quakers  came,  they 
were  at  once  and  as  freely  welcomed  on  the 
same  free  principles,  as  also  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Church  of  England. 

As  to  William  Penn,  though  contemplating 
above  all  the  well-being  and  furtherance  of  the 
particular  Society  of  which  he  was  an  eminent 
ornament  and  preacher,  consistency  with  him- 


192         THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

self,  as  well  as  the  establis  ed  situation  of  af- 
fairs, demanded  of  him  the  free  toleration  of 
the  Church,  however  unpalatable  to  his  Society, 
and  with  it  of  all  religious  sects  and  orders  of 
worship.  From  his  prison  at  Newgate  he  had 
written  that  the  enaction  of  laws  restraining 
persons  from  the  free  exercise  of  their  con- 
sciences in  matters  of  relisrion  was  but  "  the 
knotting  of  whipcord  on  the  part  of  the 
enactors  to  lash  their  owm  posterity,  whom 
they  could  never  promise  to  be  conformed 
for  ages  to  come  to  a  national  religion." 
Again  and  again  had  he  preached  and  pro- 
claimed the  folly  and  wickedness  of  attempt- 
ing to  change  the  religious  opinions  of  men 
by  the  application  of  force — the  utter  unrea- 
sonableness of  persecuting  orderly  people  in 
this  world  about  things  which  belong  to  the 
next — the  gross  injustice  of  sacrificing  any 
one's  liberty  or  property  on  account  of  creed 
if  not  found  breaking  the  laws  relating  to 
natural  and  civil  things. 

Hence,  from  principle  as  well  as  from 
necessity,  when  he  came  to  formulate  a  po- 
litical constitution  for  his  colony,  he  laid  it 
down  as  the  primordial  principle:  "I  do,  for 
me  and  mine,  declare  and  establish  for  the 
first   fundamental   of   the  government  of   my 


CONSTITUTIONAL   PROVISIONS.  193 

province  that  every  person  that  doth  and 
shall  reside  therein  shall  have  and  enjoy  the 
free  possession  of  his  or  her  faith  and  exer- 
cise of  worship  toward  God,  in  such  way 
and  manner  as  every  such  person  shall  in 
conscience  believe  is  most  acceptable  to  God. 
And  so  long  as  such  person  useth  not  this 
Christian  liberty  to  licentiousness  or  the  de- 
struction of  others — that  is,  to  speak  loosely 
and  profanely  or  contemptuously  of  God, 
Christ,  the  Holy  Scriptures,  or  religion,  or 
commit  any  moral  evil  or  injury  against 
others  in  their  conversation — he  or  she  shall 
be  protected  in  the  enjoyment  of  the  afore- 
said Christian  liberty  by  the  civil  magistrate." 

Constitutional  Provisions. 
This  was  in  exact  accord  with  the  princi- 
ples and  provisions  under  which  the  original 
colony  had  been  formed,  and  had  already 
been  living  and  prospering  for  more  than 
forty  years  preceding.  Everything,  there- 
fore, was  in  full  readiness  and  condition  for 
the  universal  and  hearty  adoption  of  the 
grand  first  article  enacted  by  the  first  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  to  wit:  "That  no  person  now 
or  hereafter  residing  in  this  province,  who 
shall   confess   one  Almighty   God    to   be   the 

13 


194        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

Creator,  Upholder,  and  Ruler  of  the  world, 
and  profess  himself  obliged  in  conscience  to 
live  peaceably  and  justly  under  the  civil 
government,  shall  in  any  wise  be  molested 
or  prejudiced  on  account  of  his  conscientious 
persuasion  or  practice;  nor  shall  he  be  com- 
pelled to  frequent  or  main  tain  any  religious 
worship,  place,  or  ministry  contrary  to  his 
mind,  but  shall  freely  enjoy  his  liberty  in 
that  respect,  without  interruption  or  reflec- 
tion." 

In  these  specific  provisions  all  classes  in  the 
colony  at  the  time  heartily  united.  And  thus 
was  secured  and  guaranteed  to  every  good  cit- 
izen that  full,  rightful,  and  precious  religious 
freedom  which  is  the  birthright  of  all  Amer- 
icans, for  which  the  oppressed  of  all  the  ages 
sighed,  and  which  had  to  make  its  way  through 
a  Red  Sea  of  human  tears  and  blood  and  many 
a  sorrowful  wilderness  before  reaching  its  place 
of  rest. 

Safeguards  to  True  Liberty. 
IV.  But  the  religious  liberty  which  our  fa- 
thers thus  sought  to  secure  and  to  transmit  to 
their  posterity  was  not  a  licentious  libertinism. 
They  knew  the  value  of  religious  principles 
and  good  morals  to  the  individual  and  to  the 


SAFEGUARDS    TO    TRUE  LIBERTY.  195 

stale,  and  they  did  not  leave  it  an  open  matter, 
under  plea  of  free  conscience,  for  men  to  con- 
duct themselves  as  they  jDlease  with  regard  to 
virtue  and  religion. 

To  be  disrespectful  toward  divine  worship,  to 
interfere  with  its  free  exercise  as  honest  men 
are  moved  to  render  it,  or  to  set  at  naught  the 
moral  code  of  honorable  behavior  in  human 
society,  is  never  the  dictate  of  honest  convic- 
tion of  duty,  and,  in  the  nature  of  things,  can- 
not be.  It  is  not  conscience,  but  the  overriding 
of  conscience  ;  nay,  rebellion  against  the  whole 
code  of  conscience,  against  the  foundations  of 
all  government,  against  the  very  existence  of 
civil  society.  Liberty  to  blaspheme  Almighty 
God,  to  profane  his  name  and  ordinances,  to 
destroy  his  worship,  and  to  set  common  mor- 
ality at  naught,  is  not  religious  liberty,  but 
disorderly  wickedness,  a  cloak  of  maliciousness, 
the  licensing  of  the  devil  as  an  angel  of  light. 
It  belongs  to  mere  brute  liberty,  which  must 
be  restrained  and  brought  under  bonds  in  or- 
der to  render  true  liberty  possible.  Wild  and 
lawless  freedom  must  come  under  the  restraints 
and  limits  of  defined  order,  peace,  and  essential 
morality,  or  somebody's  freedom  must  suffer, 
and  social  happiness  is  out  of  the  question. 
And  it  is  one  of  the  inherent  aims  and  offices 


1S6        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

of  government  to  enforce  this  very  constraint, 
without  which  it  totally  fails  of  its  end  and  for- 
feits its  right  to  be.  Where  people  are  other- 
wise law-abiding,  orderly,  submissive  to  the 
requisites  for  the  being  and  well-being  of  a 
state,  and  abstain  from  encroachments  upon 
the  liberties  of  others,  they  are  not  to  be  mo- 
lested, forced,  or  compelled  in  spiritual  matters 
contrary  to  their  honest  convictions  ;  but  public 
blasphemy,  open  profanity,  disorderly  interfe- 
rence with  divine  worshij)  and  reverence,  and 
'the  hindrance  of  what  tends  to  the  preservation 
of  good  morals,  it  pertains  to  the  existence  and 
office  of  a  state  to  restrain  and  punish.  Se- 
verity upon  such  disorders  is  not  tyrannical 
abridgment  of  the  rights  of  conscience,  for  no 
proper  citizen's  conscience  can  ever  prompt  or 
constrain  him  to  any  such  things.  And  every- 
thing which  tends  to  weaken  and  destroy  regard 
for  the  eternal  Power  on  which  all  things  de- 
pend, to  relax  the  sense  of  accountability  to  the 
divine  judgment,  and  to  trample  on  the  laws 
of  eternal  morality,  is  the  worst  enemy  of  the 
state,  which  it  cannot  allow  without  peril  to 
its  own  existence. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  state  is  bound  for  the 
same  reasons  to  protect  and  defend  religion  in 
general  and  the  cultivation  of  the  religious  sen- 


LA  WS  ON  RELIGION  AND  MORALS.         197 

timents,  in  so  far,  at  least,  as  the  laws  of  virtue 
and  order  are  not  transgressed  in  the  name  of 
religion.  It  may  not  interfere  to  decide  be- 
tween different  religious  societies  or  churches, 
as  they  may  be  equally  conscientious  and  hon- 
est in  their  diversities ;  but  where  the  tendency 
is  to  good  and  reverence,  and  the  training  of 
the  community  to  right  and  orderly  life,  it 
belongs  to  the  office  and  being  of  the  state  not 
only  to  tolerate,  but  to  protect  them  all  alike. 
In  the  fatherly  care  of  its  subjects,  the  people 
consenting,  the  state  may  also  recommend  and 
provide  support  for  some  particular  and  ap- 
proved order  of  faith  and  worship,  just  as  it 
provides  for  public  education.  And  though 
the  civil  power  may  not  rightfully  punish,  fine, 
imprison,  and  oppress  orderly  and  honest  cit- 
izens for  conscientious  non-conformity  to  any 
one  specific  system  of  belief  and  worship,  it 
may,  and  must,  provide  for  and  protect  what 
tends  to  its  rightful  conservation,  and  also  con- 
demn, punish,  and  restrain  whatsoever  tends 
to  unseat  it  and  undermine  its  existence  and 
peace.  These  are  fundamental  requirements 
in  all  sound  political  economy. 

Laws  on  Religion  and  Morals. 
Our    fathers,    in    their    wisdom,   understood 


198        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

this,  and  fashioned  their  state  provisions  and 
laws  accordingly. 

The  thing  specified  as  the  supreme  concern 
of  the  public  authorities  in  the  original  settle- 
ment of  this  territory  by  the  Swedes  was,  to 
"consider  and  see  to  it  that  a  true  and  due 
worship,  becoming  honor,  laud,  and  praise  be 
paid  to  the  most  high  God  in  all  things,"  and 
that  "all  persons,  but  especially  the  young, 
shall  be  duly  instructed  in  the  articles  of  their 
Christian  faith." 

But  if  public  worship  and  religious  instruc- 
tion are  to  be  fostered  and  preserved  by  the 
state,  there  must  be  set  times  for  it,  the  people 
released  at  those  times  from  hindering  occu- 
pations and  engagements,  and  whatever  may 
interfere  therewith  restrained  and  put  under 
bonds  against  interruption.  In  other  words, 
the  Lord's  proper  worship  demands  and  re- 
quires a  protected  Lord's  Day.  Such  ap- 
pointed and  sacred  times  for  these  holy  pur- 
poses have  been  from  the  foundation  of  the 
world.  Under  all  dispnesations  one  day  in 
every  seven  was  a  day  unto  the  Lord,  pro- 
tected and  preserved  for  such  sacred  uses, 
on  which  secular  occupations  should  cease, 
and  nothing  allowed  which  would  interfere 
with    the    public    worship    of  Almighty    God 


LAWS  ON  RELIGION  AND  MORALS.         199 

and  the  handling  of  his  Word.  And  "  because 
it  was  requisite  to  appoint  a  certain  day,  that 
the  people  might  know  when  they  ought  to 
come  together,  it  appears  that  the  Christian 
Church  [and  so  all  Christian  states]  did  for 
that  purpose  appoint  the  Lord's  Day,"  our 
weekly  Sunday. 

This  William  Penn  found  in  existence  and 
observance  by  the  Swedes  and  the  Dutch  on 
this  territory  when  he  arrived.  He  therefore 
advised,  and  the  first  General  Assembly  of 
Pennsylvania  justly  ordained,  "  that,  according 
to  the  good  example  of  the  primitive  Christians 
and  the  ease  of  the  creation,  every  first  day  of 
the  week,  called  the  Lord's  Day,  people  shall 
abstain  from  their  common  daily  labor,  that 
they  may  the  better  dispose  themselves  to  wor- 
ship God  according  to  their  understandings  " — 
a  provision  so  necessary  and  important  that  the 
statute  laws  of  our  commonwealth  have  always 
guarded  its  observance  with  penalties  which  the 
State  cannot  in  justice  to  itself  allow  to  go  un- 
enforced, and  which  no  good  citizen  should 
refuse  strictly  to  obey. 

And  to  the  same  end  was  it  provided  and 
ordained  by  the  first  General  Assembly  that 
"  if  any  person  shall  abuse  or  deride  another 
for  his  different  persuasion  or  practice  In  relig- 


200        THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

ion,  such  shall  be  looked  upon  as  disturbers 
of  the  peace,  and  be  punished  accordingly." 
And  in  the  line  of  the  same  wholesome  and 
necessary  policy  it  was  also  further  provided 
and  ordained  that  "all  such  offences  against 
God  as  swearing,  cursing,  lying,  profane  talk- 
ing, drunkenness,  obscene  words,  revels,  etc. 
etc.,  which  excite  the  people  to  rudeness,  cru- 
elty, and  irreligion,  shall  be  respectively  dis- 
couraged and  severely  punished." 

Such  were  the  good  and  righteous  provisions 
made  for  the  restraint  of  the  licentiousness  and 
brutishness  of  man  in  the  primeval  days  of  our 
commonwealth ;  and  wherein  it  has  since  sunk 
away  from  these  original  organic  laws  the  peo- 
ple have  only  weakened  and  degraded  them- 
selves, and  hindered  that  virtuous  and  happy 
prosperity  which  would  otherwise  in  far  larger 
degree  than  now  be  our  inheritance. 

Forms  of  Government. 

V.  And  yet  again,  as  the  fathers  of  our  com- 
monwealth gave  us  religion  without  compulsion, 
so  they  also  gave  us  a  State  without  a  king. 

There  is  nothing  necessarily  wrong  or  ne- 
cessarily right  in  this  particular.  Monarchy, 
aristocracy,  republicanism,  or  pure  democracy 
cannot  claim  divine  right  the  one  over  against 


FORMS  OF  GOVERNMENT.  201 

the  other.  Either  may  be  good,  or  either  may 
be  bad,  as  the  situation  and  the  chances  may  be. 
There  has  been  as  much  bloody  wrong  and  ruin 
wrought  in  the  name  of  liberty  as  in  the  estab- 
lishment of  thrones.  There  have  been  as  good 
and  happy  governments  by  kings  as  by  any 
other  methods  of  human  administration.  Civil 
authority  is  essential  to  man,  and  the  power  for 
it  must  lie  somewhere.  The  only  question  is 
as  to  the  safest  depository  of  it.  The  mere 
form  of  the  government  is  no  great  matter.  It 
has  been  justly  said,  "  There  is  hardly  a  gov- 
ernment in  the  world  so  ill  designed  that  in 
good  hands  would  not  do  well  enough,  nor  any 
so  good  that  in  ill  hands  can  do  aught  great 
and  good."  Governments  depend  on  men,  not 
men  on  governments.  Let  men  be  good,  and 
the  government  will  not  be  bad ;  but  if  men 
are  bad,  no  government  will  hold  for  good. 
If  government  be  bad,  good  men  will  cure  it ; 
and  if  the  government  be  good,  bad  men  will 
warp  and  spoil  it.  Nor  is  there  any  form  of 
government  known  to  man  that  is  not  liable 
to  abuse,  prostitution,  tyranny,  unrighteous- 
ness, and  oppression. 

The  best  government  is  that  which  most 
efficiently  conserves  the  true  ends  of  govern- 
ment,  be   the   form   what   it  may.     Anything 


202        THE  FOUNDING  OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

differing  from  this  is  worthless  sentimentalism, 
undeserving  of  sober  regard.  And  to  meet  the 
true  ends  of  government  there  must  be  power 
to  enforce  obedience,  and  there  must  be  checks 
upon  that  power  to  secure  its  subjects  against 
its  abuse ;  for  "  liberty  without  obedience  is 
confusion,  and  obedience  without  'liberty  is 
slavery."  But  there  may  be  liberty  under 
monarchy,  as  well  as  reverence  and  obedience 
under  democracy,  whilst  there  may  be  oppres- 
sion and  bloody  tyranny  under  either. 

Amid  the  varied  experiments  of  the  ages  the 
human  mind  is  more  and  more  settling  itself 
in  favor  of  mixed  forms  of  government,  in  which 
the  rights  of  the  people  and  the  limitations  of 
authority  are  set  down  in  fixed  constitutions, 
taking  the  direct  rule  from  the  multitude,  but 
still  holding  the  rulers  accountable  to  the  peo- 
ple. Such  were  more  or  less  the  forms  under 
which  the  founders  of  our  commonwealth  were 
tutored. 

A  Republican  State. 

But  they  went  a  degree  further  than  the 
precedents  before  them.  They  believed  the 
mi  test  depository  of  power  to  be  with  the  peo- 
ple themselves,  under  constitutions  ordained 
by  those  intending  to  live  under  them  and 
administered  by  persons  of  their  own  choice. 


THE  LAST  TWO  HUNDRED    YEARS.         203 

"Where  the  laws  rule,  and  the  people  are  a 
party  to  those  laws/'  was  believed  to  be  the 
true  ideal  and  realization  of  civil  liberty — the 
way  "  to  support  power  in  reverence  with  the 
people,  and  to  secure  the  people  from  the  abuse 
of  power,  that  they  may  be  free  by  their  just 
obedience,  and  the  magistrates  honorable  for 
their  just  administration." 

And  with  these  ideas,  "  with  reverence  to 
God  and  good  conscience  to  men,"  the  first 
General  Assembly  in  1682  enacted  a  common 
code  of  sixty-one  laws,  in  which  the  foundation- 
stones  of  the  civil  and  criminal  jurisprudence  of 
this  broad  commonwealth  were  laid,  and  a  style 
of  government  ordained  so  reasonable,  moder- 
ate, just,  and  equal  in  its  provisions  that  no  one 
yet  has  found  just  cause  to  deny  the  wisdom 
and  beneficence  of  its  structure,  whilst  Montes- 
quieu pronounces  it  "  an  instance  unparalleled 
in  the  world's  history  of  the  foundation  of  a 
great  state  laid  in  peace,  justice,  and  equality." 

The  Last  Two  Hundred  Years. 
Two  hundred  years  have  gone  by  since  this 
completed  organization  of  our  noble  common- 
wealth. Her  free  and  liberal  principles  then 
still  remained  in  large  measure  to  be  learned 
by  some  of  the  other  American  colonies.    From 


204       THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

the  very  start  she  was  the  chief  conservator  of 
what  was  to  be  the  model  for  all  this  grand 
Union  of  free  States — a  character  which  she 
has  never  lost  in  all  the  history  of  onr  national 
existence.  Six  generations  of  stalwart  freemen 
has  she  reared  beneath  her  shielding  care  to 
people  her  own  vast  territory  and  that  of  many 
other  States,  no  one  of  which  has  ever  failed 
in  truthfulness  to  the  great  principles  in  which 
she  was  born.  Always  more  solid  than  noisy, 
and  more  reserved  than  obtrusive,  she  has  ever 
served  as  the  great  balance-wheel  in  the  mighty 
engine  of  our  national  organization.  Her  life, 
commingled  with  other  lives  attempered  to  her 
own,  now  pulsates  from  ocean  to  ocean  and  from 
the  frozen  lakes  to  the  warm  Gulf  waters,  all 
glad  and  glorious  in  the  unity  and  sunshine 
of  constitutional  government  in  the  hands  of 
a  free  people.  With  her  population  drawn 
from  all  nationalities  to  learn  from  her  lips 
the  sacred  lessons  of  independent  self-rule, 
she  has  sent  it  forth  as  freely  to  the  westward 
to  build  co-equal  States  in  the  beauty  of  her 
own  image,  whilst  four  millions  of  her  chil- 
dren still  abide  in  growing  happiness  under 
her  maternal  care.  V.erily,  it  was  the  spirit 
of  prophecy  which  said,  two  hundred  years 
ago,  "  God  will  bless  that  ground" 


THE  LAST  TWO  HUNDRED    YEARS.         205 

That  blessing;  we  have  lived  to  see.  Mav 
it  continue  for  yet  many  centennials,  and  grow 
as  it  endures !  May  the  faith  and  spirit  of  the 
men  through  whose  piety  and  wisdom  it  has 
come  still  warm  and  animate  the  hearts  of  their 
successors  to  the  latest  generations !  May  no 
careless  or  corrupt  administration  of  justice  or 
"  looseness  "  or  infidelities  of  the  people  come 
in  to  bring  down  the  wrath  of  Heaven  for  its 
interruption !  May  the  sterling  principles  of 
our  happy  freedom  be  made  good  to  us  and 
our  posterity  by  the  good  keeping  of  them 
in  honest  virtue  and  obedience,  and  in  due 
reverence  of  Him  who  gave  them,  and  who 
is  the  God  and  Judge  of  nations !  May  those 
sacred  conditions  of  the  divine  favor  "  which 
descend  not  with  worldly  inheritances  "  be  so 
embedded  in  the  training  and  education  of 
our  youth  that  the  spirit  of  the  children  may 
not  be  a  libel  on  the  faith  and  devotion  of 
their  fathers ! 

Centuries  have  passed,  but  the  God  of  Gus- 
tavus  Adolphus,  of  the  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth 
Rock,  of  William  Penn,  and  of  the  hero- 
saints  of  every  age  and  country  still  lives 
and  reigns.  Men  may  deny  it,  but  that 
does  not  alter  it.  His  government  and  Gos- 
pel are  the  same   now  that  they   have   ever 


206        THE  FOUNDING   OF  PENNSYLVANIA. 

been.  What  he  most  approved  and  blessed 
in  their  days  he  most  approves  and  blesses  in 
ours.  And  may  their  fear  and  love  of  him 
be  to  us  and  our  children  a  copy  and  a 
guide,  to  steer  in  safety  amid  the  dangerous 
rapids  of  these  doubtful  times  ! 

"And  thou,  Philadelphia,  the  virgin  settle- 
ment of  this  province,  named  before  thou  wert 
born !  what  love,  what  care,  what  service,  and 
what  travail  has  there  been  to  bring  thee 
forth  and  preserve  thee  from  such  as  would 
abuse  and  defile  thee!  My  soul  prays  to 
God  for  thee,  that  thou  may  est  stand  in  the 
day  of  trial,  that  thy  children  may  be  blessed 
of  the  Lord,  and  thy  people  saved  by  his 
power." 


THE    END. 


Date  Due 





f- 


7f 


-- 


